ARVO 2024: New data on diabetic retinopathy lesions from the DRCR Retina Network

At this year's ARVO meeting, Paolo Silva, MD, presented data on Protocol AA on behalf of the DRCR Retina Network and the effect of diabetic retinopathy lesion location and severity on the risk for progression in the long term.

Video Transcript:

Editor's note: The below transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Paolo Silva, MD:

So I'm Paolo Antonio Silva. I'm associate professor at Harvard Medical School, and I'm presenting work on behalf of the DRCR Retina Network. So, we looked at the effect of diabetic retinopathy lesion location and severity on the risk for progression long term. This was a post hoc analysis of the DRCR protocol double A, which evaluated the utility of ultra wide field imaging in predicting the risk of progression long-term. But this post-hoc analysis identified is the importance of the peripheral lesions in predicting and more accurately determining the severity of retinopathy present in these eyes, and allowing us to be more accurate in determining the risk of progression long-term.

So I think the DRCR double A dataset provides a rich resource for us to be able to evaluate the risk factors for progression. It will also allow us to potentially change our current DR severity scales, and how these will impact the prediction of eyes that are at increased or at a higher risk of worsening long-term. So we're looking at other novel ways to evaluate this dataset, looking at how exact distances, how non-perfusion changes in the eyes, and how these can be used in clinical practice to help our patients reduce the risk of visual loss from diabetic retinopathy.