Inter-grader reliability in the Danish screening programme for diabetic retinopathy

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Documents

  • Fulltext

    Final published version, 332 KB, PDF document

  • Anne Suhr Thykjær
  • Jens Andresen
  • Nis Andersen
  • Toke Bek
  • Heegaard, Steffen
  • Javad Hajari
  • Caroline Schmidt Laugesen
  • Sören Möller
  • Frederik Nørregaard Pedersen
  • Ryo Kawasaki
  • Kurt Højlund
  • Katrine Hass Rubin
  • Lonny Stokholm
  • Tunde Peto
  • Jakob Grauslund

Purpose: The Danish Registry of Diabetic Retinopathy includes information from >200 000 patients who attends diabetic retinopathy (DR) screening in Denmark. Screening of patients with uncomplicated type 2 diabetes is often performed by practicing ophthalmologists, while patients with type 1 and complicated type 2 diabetes attends screening at hospitals. We performed a clinical reliability study of retinal images from Danish screening facilities to explore the inter-grader agreement between the primary screening ophthalmologist and a blinded, certified grader. Methods: Invitations to participate were sent to screening facilities across Denmark. The primary grader uploaded fundus photographs with information on estimated level of DR (International Clinical Diabetic Retinopathy scale as 0 [no DR], 1–3 [mild, moderate or severe nonproliferative DR {NPDR}], or 4 [proliferative DR {PDR}]), region of screening, image style, and screening facility. Images were then regraded by a blinded, certified, secondary grader. Weighted kappa analysis was performed to evaluate agreement. Results: Fundus photographs from 230 patients (458 eyes) were received from practicing ophthalmologists (52.6%) and hospital-based grading centres (47.4%) from all Danish regions. Reported levels of DR by the primary graders were 66.8%, 12.2%, 13.1%, 1.3% and 5.5% for DR levels 0–4. The overall agreement between primary and secondary graders was 93% (κ = 0.83). Based on screening facility agreement was 96% (κ = 0.89) and 90% (κ = 0.76) for practicing ophthalmologists and hospital-based graders. Conclusion: In this nationwide study, we observed a high overall inter-grader agreement and based on this, it is reasonable to assume that reported DR gradings in the screening programme in Denmark, accurately reflect the truth.

Original languageEnglish
JournalActa Ophthalmologica
Volume101
Issue number7
Pages (from-to)783-788
ISSN1755-375X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The research leading to these results has received funding from The Velux Foundation (grant number: 00028744), Steno Diabetes Center Odense and M.L. Jørgensen & Gunnar Hansens Foundation.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Acta Ophthalmologica published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Acta Ophthalmologica Scandinavica Foundation.

    Research areas

  • diabetic retinopathy, interrater agreement, reliability, screening

ID: 367190772