Retinal imaging for Diabetic Retinopathy

In the United States, only 62% of the 37 million people with diabetes receive annual screening exams for diabetic retinopathy. One of the goals of the US Department of Health and Human Services Healthy People 2030 campaign is to increase diabetic retinopathy screening rates to 70.3%. Research indicates that low screening rates are associated with a variety of factors, including income levels, race and lack of access to care. Furthermore, because diabetic retinopathy frequently presents asymptomatically, non-adherence to screening results in postponed disease detection and a higher probability of vision loss. Currently, it is estimated that 9 million adults in the US are affected by diabetic retinopathy, and 1.8 million suffer from vision-threatening diabetic retinopathy. Importantly, the rates of vtDR vary greatly by race, with Hispanic individuals at 7.14% and Black individuals at 8.66%, compared to 3.55% in White individuals. Despite these alarming figures, the disease can be managed and vision loss can often be averted with early disease detection, thus highlighting the importance of increasing screening rates. A clear need exists for a diabetic retinopathy screening tool that can be deployed in primary care settings, addressing the shortage of specialist care and making screening more accessible to underserved populations. OPTDR01 will directly address these issues by providing accessible, high quality screening for diabetic retinopathy. OPTDR01 will automatically detect more than mild diabetic retinopathy (mtmDR) and vision-threatening diabetic retinopathy (vtDR) in diabetic adults who have not previously been diagnosed with mtmDR or vtDR.