Reliability of clinical grading of diabetic retinopathy compared with grading of ultra-widefield images.

PURPOSE:To evaluate the reliability of clinical grading of diabetic retinopathy (DR) severity compared with grading on ultra-widefield pseudocolor fundus (UWF-CF) and ultra-widefield fluorescein angiography (UWF-FA) images and their relative detection of sight-threatening DR and referable DR. METHODS:A total of 184 diabetic eyes were analyzed. UWF-CF and UWF-FA images were graded based on the International Clinical Diabetic Retinopathy severity scale. Agreement between clinical and UWF-based severity grading was evaluated using Cohen's kappa coefficient. The rate of sight-threatening DR and referable DR was evaluated for each grading method. RESULTS:Moderate agreement was found between clinical grading and UWF-CF (k = 0.456, P < 0.001) and between UWF-CF and UWF-FA (k = 0.443, P < 0.001). The agreement between clinical grading and UWF-FA was fair (k = 0.397, P < 0.001). UWF-based grading identified a higher DR grade in 56 eyes (30%) on UWF-CF and 85 eyes (46.2%) on UWF-FA. Compared with clinical grading, UWF-FA detected a higher rate of sight-threatening DR (44%; 81/184 vs. 22.3%; 41/184), while UWF-CF detected more referable eyes (58.1%; 107/184 vs. 45.65%; 84/184). CONCLUSION:Ultra-widefield pseudocolor fundus is a valuable tool for identifying referable eyes and can be a useful, noninvasive adjunct to clinical grading. The results suggest that UWF-FA is particularly useful for detecting unsuspected sight-threatening DR in eyes with clinically referable DR.