| Inoveon News Release Inoveon Completes 10,000th iScan to Help Prevent Blindness from Diabetic Retinopathy American Diabetes Association survey ranks blindness as the top concern among people with diabetes For Immediate Release: October 2, 2002 Media Contact: Lloyd Hildebrand, Chief Medical Officer 405.271.9025 ext. 34700 info@inoveon.com |
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| OKLAHOMA CITY (October 2,
2002) Inoveon
Corporation, a medical services company specializing in
detecting, staging and monitoring diseases affecting the eye,
announced today the company has completed the 10,000th
evaluation
of patients with diabetes as part of its effort to improve
the
management of diabetic retinopathy. A microvascular complication that
usually occurs without symptoms, diabetic retinopathy is the
leading cause of blindness among working age adults in
industrialized countries. "Since implementing the Inoveon 3DT system, our compliance rate for annual eye evaluations of patients with diabetes has jumped from less than 30 percent to 80 percent," says Dr. Boyd Shook, Associate Chief of Staff for Ambulatory Care at the Oklahoma City VA Medical Center, which has been using the Inoveon system since November 1999. "Our patients have been very positive about the Inoveon technology and know we're going beyond the usual steps to help them manage diabetes and reduce the risk of blindness." According to HEDIS reports from the National Center for Quality Assurance (NCQA), only 45 percent of people with diabetes in the United States receive the annual diabetic retinopathy exam recommended by the American Academy of Ophthalmology and American Diabetes Association. Furthermore, the compliance rate drops dramatically in subsequent years. As a result, retinopathy leads to 40,000 cases of blindness and 160,000 cases of moderate vision loss each year according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In March 2002, the peer-review publication Ophthalmology published the findings of a clinical validation study of Inoveon 3DT technology, which achieved 98.2 percent sensitivity, and 89.7 percent specificity when compared to the "gold standard" established by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for detection and staging of vision threatening retinopathy. According to Dr. Frederick Ferris, Director of the Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Research at the NIH National Eye Institute (NEI), knowing the stage of retinopathy is critical to initiating appropriate treatment. The problem, he says, there simply aren't regular qualified retinal evaluations for each patient. "There are effective treatments for patients with diabetes, but many patients are not receiving these treatments," says Ferris. "We need validated screening programs like this to assure help for patients on a national scale. Only by solving that problem will we be able to effectively offer treatments proven to prevent blindness." The Inoveon 3DT platform is a patented digital evaluation service for diabetic retinopathy that produces images in seven areas of each eye offering a less expensive, more efficient solution for primary care physicians to detect, track and manage patients with diabetic retinopathy. Patients with diabetes undergo a safe, non-invasive retinal scan at a local Inoveon Patient Service Center. The images are transmitted electronically to the Inoveon Evaluation Center for analysis. A comprehensive report with a disease management recommendation is sent back to the primary care physician within 48 hours. "For more than 25 years, ophthalmologists have known how to prevent most of the blindness from diabetic retinopathy but it's still the leading cause of blindness among working-age Americans," says Dr. Stephen Fransen, Inoveon co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer. "A major reason for our failure to prevent blindness is that patients simply aren't being evaluated and therefore can't get the proper treatment. That's why we created the Inoveon technology platform and service center model." About Inoveon: Inoveon Corporation is the industry leader in the detection, staging and monitoring of diabetic retinopathy. Founded in 1997, Inoveon Corp. has successfully completed more than 10,000 clinical iScan retinal imaging studies. The service is delivered in partnership with large primary care and endocrinology clinics to improve the quality, convenience, economics, and medical outcomes of patients at risk for vision loss due to diabetes. Placing the service in the primary care environment helps to increase patient compliance with recommended annual dilated retinal evaluations and provides clinically rich information to improve patient care. For more information, visit the Web site at www.inoveon.com. |
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