THE NATIONAL DIABETIC-RETINOPATHY LASER TREATMENT AUDIT - II - PROLIFERATIVE RETINOPATHY

The National Diabetic Retinopathy Laser Treatment Audit is a prospecti ve survey of laser treatment for diabetic retinopathy throughout the U nited Kingdom. This paper presents data on 284 patients who were under going their first panretinal photocoagulation for proliferative retino pathy during a 2 month period in 1995, describing the demographic feat ures, the level of systematic screening, the sources of referral, and the waiting times. For those cases where proliferative retinopathy was present at the first ophthalmology outpatient visit, the retinopathy was detected as a result of systematic screening in 46.8%, whilst 28.7 % presented symptomatically. Of these patients 28.4% waited for more t han 12 weeks from referral to the time of laser treatment, but once th e patient had been listed for laser treatment this was performed withi n 8 weeks in 95.3%. The retinopathy features and the type of treatment given are also described. Compared with the DRS and ETDRS recommendat ions, at least 32.5-40.2% of eyes may be undertreated initially, and f or those with highrisk characteristics these figures were at least 30. 8-38.5%.