Artificial Intelligence improves follow-up appointment uptake for diabetic retinal assessment: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background/objectives: Artificial intelligence (AI) assessment of diabetic retinopathy (DR) instead of scarce trained specialists could potentially increases the efficiency and accessibility of screening programs. This systematic review aims to systematically examine the uptake of follow-up appointments with initial computer-based AI and human graders of DR.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis by screening articles in any languages in PubMed, MEDLINE (Ovid), EMBASE, Web of Science, Cochrane CENTRAL and CDSR published from database inception up to 20 August 2024. We used random-effects meta-analysis to pool the results as odds ratios (OR) with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI).

Results: Data from a total of 20,108 patients with diabetes (6476 participants graded using AI and 13,632 participants graded by human-graders; age range of the participants 5 to 67 years) from six studies were included. The result of the pooled meta-analysis showed that initial AI assessment of DR significantly increased uptake of follow-up appointments compared to human grader-based (OR = 1.89, 95% CI 1.78-2.01, P = 0.00001).

Conclusions: The present systematic review and meta-analysis suggest that initial AI-based algorithm for screening DR is associated with an increased uptake of follow-up examination. This is most likely due to instant results being made available with AI based algorithms when compared to a delay in assessment with human graders.