Doubts over screening children

Regular retinal screening of children with type 1 diabetes is not cost effective, according to researchers at Yale University of Medicine.

The study looked at the outcome of screening 130 diabetic children, all over 10 years and having had diabetes for more than three years. Only three showed positive retinopathy signs. Dr William Tambourlaine suggested it would be more cost effective to screen only those children shown to have persistently elevated HbA1C levels referring to the measurement of baseline bound glucose in the blood.

A lot of time, effort and money goes into screening diabetic children for eye disease,' he went on, 'and, as evidenced by our study, with very little yield.'