One of the questions ocular health practitioners ask about ultra-widefield retinal imaging (UWF™) is regarding the justification of a voluntary procedure that entails added cost. Will patients really be interested in a new and possibly unfamiliar diagnostic procedure that’s not covered by insurance?

The core issue is patient perception. If a procedure is not paid for by insurance, is it really necessary? Here are some practical suggestions about how to talk to your patients about the importance of optomap.

The Patient Wants to Hear From You

While your office staff are an important part of your practice, your patients want your opinion. Even if your staff has already discussed optomap with the patient, take the time to personally explain how optomap works and its benefits. Focus on the advantages over conventional imaging, including ease of use, a wider field of view, and the ability to review and store high-resolution images.

Your personal attention to your patients’ questions and your own enthusiasm about the technology will send a powerful message.

What About Scripts?

Every practice can benefit from the use of scripts to guide discussions about the use of UWF imaging. This helps assure patients get concise, accurate information …

We’ve all laughed at the desperate schemes of Ralphie Parker. He’s the 9-year-old narrator of the movie “A Christmas Story,” which follows his desperate attempts to convince his parents, his teachers and even Santa Claus that what he really wants for Christmas is a Red Ryder BB gun with the compass in the stock.

Well, we all know how well that turned out.

“A Christmas Story” reminds us that we need to take extra care around the holidays to make sure the toys and gifts our children receive are safe and age-appropriate. It’s why Prevent Blindness America has declared December “Safe Toys and Gifts Awareness Month.”

Consider the risks presented by the wrong toy. A survey by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated that each year toy-related mishaps injure more than 1/4 million children under the age of 15. Almost 100,000 of these accidents occurred in infants and toddlers under 5 years of age. Another study found that over the course of one year toy makers around the world recalled more than 19 million toys because of safety concerns.

Holiday Child Safety — Everyone’s Job

Every parent, relative and gift-giver has a role to play …

One of the ways to measure the impact of a diagnostic technology is its ability to reveal insights into the origins and progression of disease. A recent study¹ using ultra-widefield (UWF™) imaging is providing researchers and practitioners with a new look at diabetic retinopathy (DR). It suggests a novel way to characterize DR that may lead to a better understanding of where and how it develops.

Diabetic Retinopathy and Ultra-widefield Imaging

Over the past decade, UWF imaging has become an important tool in the assessment and treatment of DR. UWF optomap^® color imaging, performed without pupil dilation, is recognized as providing diagnostic accuracy equal to the gold standard, ETDRS seven-field color fundus photography (7SF)². Similar results have been documented for UWF fluorescein angiography, or optomap fa. Studies using optomap fa uncovered significantly more retinal vascular pathology in DR patients as compared to 7SF imaging.³

Both optomap and optomap fa give the practitioner a 200° view of the retina – a significant improvement of the 90° view afforded by 7SF imaging. This wider view of the peripheral retina has created an opportunity to develop a more complete picture of how DR develops and progresses.

Definitions and Methods

The core question posed by …

November is National Diabetes Month. Many of this month’s events encourage those with diabetes to pay special attention to their vision health. The problem? Forecasts suggest that increasing numbers of diabetic patients will have difficulty accessing vision screening and care. Recent developments in telemedicine are pointing the way to a solution.

More Patients, Not Enough Vision Care Providers

There are an estimated 415 million people in the world with diabetes. That population will climb to 642 million by 2040. The 104 million diabetes patients now in North America and Europe will grow at a slower rate, but by 2040 will still total over 132 million people.

The public health issues presented by diabetes are numerous, but vision care is of particular concern. Some level of diabetic retinopathy (DR) will affect as many as 40% of those with diabetes. Of these, a significant percentage will develop diabetic macular edema (DME). Complicating the picture is the high rate of undiagnosed diabetes – it’s estimated at over 27% of cases in the US. Finally, early stage DR is often asymptomatic, giving patients no reason to seek vision care.

Access is another part of the problem. It’s no surprise …

November is National Diabetes Month. It’s a time to reflect on the growing incidence of diabetes in North America, Europe, and the rest of the world. If you’re committed to superior diagnosis and care, here are two reasons why your ever-increasing number of diabetic patients need ultra-widefield imaging.

The starting point is a stark set of numbers. Globally there are an estimated 415 million people with diabetes, a number expected to grow to 642 million by 2040. In North America and Europe, similar stories: a total of 104 patients million today, increasing more than 26% to 132 million by 2040. Up to 40% of affected individuals will develop some level of diabetic retinopathy (DR). A significant percentage will develop diabetic macular edema (DME). All of these people will need visual health screening and supervision for the rest of their lives.

Reasons to Use Ultra-widefield For Your Diabetic Patients

Reason #1: Ultra-widefield (UWF™) imaging technology provides you with a more complete diagnostic picture.

The gold standard for assessing the presence and severity of DR and DME is ETDRS seven standard field imagery (7SF). How does UWF imaging compare? The most significant difference is diagnostic reach. UWF imaging presents …

The diagnosis and treatment of diabetic retinopathy (DR) and diabetic macular edema (DME) are in a period of rapid evolution. While existing DR and DME treatment standards remain important points of reference, the future directions for these standards are coming into focus. The combination of new imaging tools – specifically ultra-widefield (UWF™) imaging – and more individualized treatment plans may result in earlier diagnoses, better patient management plans, and improved treatment outcomes.

Bringing Diagnosis into the 21^st Century

Perhaps the biggest change in DR diagnosis and management is the growing use of ultra-widefield imaging.

UWF imaging has been proven in studies to be clinically equivalent to conventional ETDRS seven field color imaging (7SF) in the grading of DR for central pole disease. More recent studies have shown that UWF may be superior to ETDRS in that it captures a much wider (200 degrees), view of the retina. This provides diagnostic information about the peripheral retina that is impossible to visualize using conventional imaging. Starting with color (red and green) optomap^® imaging, Optos has systematically extended its UWF-based technology into a multi-modal platform that supports fundus autofluorescence(optomap af), fluorescein angiography(optomap fa) and indocyanine green angiography (optomap icg).

Numerous studies have affirmed how …

World Sight Day is an annual day of awareness held on the second Thursday of October, to focus global attention on blindness and vision impairment. World Sight Day 2016 takes place October 13. This year’s theme and call to action is “Stronger Together,” encouraging a focus on all stakeholders who are important for successful delivery of eyecare – Optos being one of those stakeholders.

Optos plc has the vision to be The Retina Company and is recognized as a leading provider of devices to eyecare professionals for improved patient care. Optos was founded and incorporated in 1992 by Douglas Anderson after his then five-year-old son went blind in one eye because a retinal detachment was detected too late. Although his son was having routine eye exams, the exams were uncomfortable, and difficult for a child to sit still through, which made it impossible for his eye doctor to conduct a complete exam and view the entire retina. Anderson’s mission was to commercialize a patient-friendly, easy to use and comfortable retinal imaging product that encompassed a digital widefield image of the retina in a single capture. Fast forward to 1999: the P200 received both 510k clearance from the FDA and the EU CE marking. Optos devices have been sold worldwide since …

In a world where the calendar is jammed with awareness months, should home eye safety and injury prevention really demand our attention? The answer is crystal clear. With two million eye injuries taking place each year in the United States¹, eye safety is something in which everyone has a stake. Let’s look at the numbers:

— The U.S. Eye Injury Registry estimates that each year Americans suffer over two million eye injuries.

— The American Academy of Ophthalmology² and the American Society of Ocular Trauma report that close to 45% of these injuries take place at home.

— Over 40% of eye injuries were caused by work related to home repairs, yard work, cleaning and cooking. Another 40% occurred during sports or recreation.

— Over one-third of injuries took place in the living areas in the home – places like the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and family room.

— There are 125,000 eye accidents a year involving household chemicals³. This totals over 10% of the total at-home eye injuries.

What’s even more sobering? It’s estimated that 90% of eye injuries can be prevented.

Building Public Awareness about Eye Injury at Home

Statistics like these explain why …

In case studies, peer-reviewed papers, and a growing body of real-world practice, the ocular health community is improving patient management with the wider use of ultra-widefield (UWF™) imaging. Like all diagnostic breakthroughs, adoption of UWF imaging has been a long term process, paced by the accumulation of validated clinical experience. But now, more than a decade after UWF imaging was first introduced, the evidence is overwhelming that UWF imaging may have the potential to improve the diagnosis and management of a significant group of ocular diseases and conditions.

UWF imaging technology captures a 200-degree image of the retina – which enables ocular health practitioners to capture peripheral retinal images that can not be captured with conventional imaging methods. Starting with color (red and green) optomap imaging, Optos has systematically extended its UWF-based technology into a multi-modal platform that supports fundus autofluorescence (optomap af), fluorescein angiography (optomap fa) and indocyanine green angiography (optomap icg).

Where does UWF imaging have potential to improve diagnosis and treatment?

Proliferative Sickle Cell Retinopathy (PSR)

In a first of its kind case study¹, researchers used multi-mode UWF imaging to examine the vascular changes associated with PSR, a complication of sickle cell disease that impacts the retinal …

Recent research suggests that patients suffering from various systemic disorders may have their disease state impacted by the addition of ultra-widefield (UWF™) retinal imaging to their examination.  New research has found that patients with sickle cell disease may benefit from UWF retinal imaging for the diagnosis and management of sickle cell retinopathy (SCR).

Background

Sickle cell disease is an inherited disorder in which the body produces blood cells with abnormally formed hemoglobin. Symptoms include anemia, severe and chronic pain, infection, hypertension, hand and foot swelling, leg ulcers, and retinal vascular changes¹. Sickle cell disease can also have an impact on vision. Sickle cell retinopathy mainly affects the peripheral retinal vasculature² as the result of abnormal, sickle-shaped blood cells becoming trapped in the small blood vessels of the eye³. Non-proliferative SCR, characterized by retinal hemorrhage from superficial blood vessels, can cause loss of visual acuity. Proliferative SCR is marked by vascular occlusions that lead to localized ischemia, neovascularization, and in later stages blindness from vitreous hemorrhage or tractional retinal detachment. Patients with sickle cell disease are at varying degrees of risk of developing SCR, but those with the type SC or S-Thal hemoglobin genotypes are at significant risk for developing …