Diabetic RetinaScreen: Demand continuing to grow

The uptake of screening for diabetic retinopathy continues to grow in Ireland, driven by the rising number of new diabetes diagnoses and improved data collection on the existing diabetic population, the Irish College of Ophthalmologists 2025 Annual Conference heard.

The Diabetic RetinaScreen programme is free of charge for people in Ireland with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, aged 12 years and older. Approximately 200,000 people are currently eligible to be on the register for screening and the programme is now in its 13th year of operation following a phased roll-out, the Programme’s Clinical Director, Prof David Keegan told the meeting.

The Programme has five referral pathways, depending on a patient’s individual risk and medical needs, he explained.

“So, there is annual screening, two-year screening, six-monthly surveillance for our high-risk patients, the pregnancy cohort screening for women with diabetes, and for those who don’t have diabetic eye disease, but have other eye disease and we manage those, but are changing that this year [to streamline the process].”

The Programme continues to add new screening locations and increase the number of appointments offered; however, demand keeps rising due to the growing prevalence of diabetes in Ireland.

“We get about 22,000 new registrations annually and are on target to carry out 140,000 screens by the end of this year, which would be the [highest] amount to date,” Ms Helen Kavanagh, Diabetic RetinaScreen Programme Manager, told the Medical Independent (MI).

“I think the biggest success for me personally is the launch of the pregnancy pathway for women with diabetes in Ireland. That was hugely successful and we are in year three of that since its launch in 2023 and we have really good data on all of those women,” Ms Kavanagh said.

Since the pathway was launched, women with diabetes can now have their screening performed locally, whereas previously they often had to travel long distances to national centres in Dublin, Cork, and Galway.

“We are also looking at new technologies and better ways of doing things, so yes we need more resources, and like everybody we are also looking at how we can use AI [artificial intelligence],” Prof Keegan told MI. “The National Screening Service has set up an AI taskforce. We are part of that and we are one of the early programmes, along with BreastCheck, looking to deploy AI.”

He explained that as well as image reading, and looking at how to improve accuracy and reduce false negatives and positives, AI has many other potential applications in screening, such as appointment organisation and optimisation.