Clinical Epidemiology (Oct 2016)

The Danish Registry of Diabetic Retinopathy

  • Andersen N,
  • Hjortdal JØ,
  • Schielke Kc,
  • Bek T,
  • Grauslund J,
  • Laugesen CS,
  • Lund-Andersen H,
  • Cerqueira C,
  • Andresen J

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 8
pp. 613 – 619

Abstract

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Nis Andersen,1,2 Jesper Østergaard Hjortdal,1,3 Katja Christina Schielke,4 Toke Bek,3 Jakob Grauslund,5 Caroline Schmidt Laugesen,6 Henrik Lund-Andersen,7 Charlotte Cerqueira,8 Jens Andresen2 1Danish Ophthalmological Society, Copenhagen, 2Organization of Danish Ophthalmologists in Private Practice, Copenhagen, 3Department of Ophthalmology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, 4Department of Ophthalmology, Aalborg University Hospital, Aalborg, 5Department of Ophthalmology, Odense University Hospital, Odense, 6Department of Ophthalmology, Copenhagen University Hospital Roskilde, Roskilde, 7Department of Ophthalmology, Glostrup Hospital, 8Registry Support Centre (East) – Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Research Centre for Prevention and Health, Rigshospitalet – Glostrup, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark Aim of database: To monitor the development of diabetic eye disease in Denmark and to evaluate the accessibility and effectiveness of diabetic eye screening programs with focus on interregional variations.Target population: The target population includes all patients diagnosed with diabetes. Denmark (5.5 million inhabitants) has ~320,000 diabetes patients with an annual increase of 27,000 newly diagnosed patients. The Danish Registry of Diabetic Retinopathy (DiaBase) ­collects data on all diabetes patients aged ≥18 years who attend screening for diabetic eye disease in hospital eye departments and in private ophthalmological practice. In 2014–2015, DiaBase included data collected from 77,968 diabetes patients.Main variables: The main variables provide data for calculation of performance indicators to monitor the quality of diabetic eye screening and development of diabetic retinopathy. Data with respect to age, sex, best corrected visual acuity, screening frequency, grading of diabetic retinopathy and maculopathy at each visit, progression/regression of diabetic eye disease, and prevalence of blindness were obtained. Data analysis from DiaBase’s latest annual report (2014–2015) indicates that the prevalence of no diabetic retinopathy, nonproliferative ­diabetic retinopathy, and proliferative diabetic retinopathy is 78%, 18%, and 4%, respectively. The percentage of patients without diabetic maculopathy is 97%. The proportion of patients with regression of diabetic retinopathy (20%) is greater than the proportion of patients with ­progression of diabetic retinopathy (10%).Conclusion: The collection of data from diabetic eye screening is still expanding in Denmark. Analysis of the data collected during the period 2014–2015 reveals an overall decrease of diabetic retinopathy compared to the previous year, although the number of patients newly diagnosed with diabetes has been increasing in Denmark. DiaBase is a useful tool to observe the quality of screening, prevalence, and progression/regression of diabetic eye disease. Keywords: diabetes, DiaBase, Danish Diabetes Database, national annual report, quality of care, database, registry, quality indicator

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