Answers

Retmarker was developed to help doctors manage retinal diseases, in particular Diabetic Retinopathy. The Difference Analysis module, which is the base of RetmarkerC and is also included in RetmarkerDR, can be used to detect signs related with other retinal diseases such as drusen activity in Age-related Macular Degeneration.

No! Doctors perform diagnosis and define treatments.

Both product versions provide information to alert to the progression of the disease that might support the doctors’ decisions and allow them to do a better use on their valuable time, focusing in regions of the exams that may need a detailed or even additional examination.

Retmarker works with retinographies (colour fundus photographs). Both RetmarkerC and RetmarkerDR were developed and fine-tuned to process 45° and 50° images, centered on the retina’s posterior pole, with the optic disc visible (field 2 images).

The images to be analyzed must comply with the following rules:
• be from the same patient;
• be from the same eye;
• share the same angle definition;

For optimum performance the retinographies should have been taken with the same fundus camera device.

The Difference Analysis module, which is the base of RetmarkerC and is also included in RetmarkerDR, is also able to process 30° images.

Other conditions/protocol may be experimented but with less probability of success.

Every fundus camera's software allows the user to export the exams in several image formats. RetmarkerC was extensively tested with TIF and JPEG images (and you should use one of these), though others may work. The minimum size accepted is 768px x 578px.

If you have problems exporting your images to be used by RetmarkerC, please refer to the fundus camera supplier’s manual.

Retinographies are less invasive than most of other imagiology techniques (e.g. angiographies), thus they are less inconvenient to the patients. There is a tendency to increase this type of widespread exams for initial screening and monitoring, further complemented by other technologies like OCT.

In the particular case of RetmarkerC, it was extensively tested with Mydriatic images, since this type of images is considered to have higher quality, however it also works with Non-Mydriatic exams but it requires some additional care when choosing the images due to their quality variability.

RetmarkerC, that is available in two versions, desktop and online – free trial available here. RetmarkerC identifies differences over time in a set of retinographies (colour fundus photographs).

A difference is something that changed between different exams (by means of e.g. lesions, hemorrhages, exudates, or even a receded lesion), but it does not mean necessarily that the patient got better or worse.

RetmarkerC deals with the process of automatically co-registering (overlapping) different images. Each image is compared against the baseline image (the first one in the set of images, considered as reference) to identify the differences. This baseline image is chosen by the user.

The differences are colored as they are currently being identified or if they were already identified in previous visits. Differences that have already been identified in previous visits are colored in blue as the actual differences being detected are colored in white.

To use RetmarkerC Online version the user needs to be registered on the website and to use valid credentials (E-mail and password) to access the proper section in the website.

This will allow the user to submit new retinographies to be automatically analyzed and to access the new images that will be generated by RetmarkerC.

The current version is available for free during a trial period. You can use it for free to evaluate the helpfulness of the solution for your daily practice.

Critical Health reserves the right to terminate at any time the Free Trial period, and will give you the option to choose whether or not you want to continue using it according to new terms and conditions.

RetmarkerDR is able to generate important ratios regarding Microaneurysm Turnover (formation and disappearance rates), in addition to the detection of differences through time like RetmarkerC.

RetmarkerDR uses our advanced proprietary co-registration algorithm which allows us to properly overlap the retinographies, and complements it with a state-of-the-art Microaneurysm detector to calculate the referred ratios.

Using the information regarding the identification of differences between visits and Microaneurysm Turnover, RetmarkerDR is an important and useful tool to Ophthalmologist and Retina Specialist to predict the probable progression of DR to a Clinically Significant Macular Edema stage, when diagnosed in a mild nonproliferative stage.