To customize clinical practice guideline (CPG) of diabetic retinopathy (DR) management for Iranian population.

Three DR CPGs (Royal College 2013, American Academy 2012 and Australian Diabetes Society 2008) were chosen from a number of available CPGs in the literature. Then, clinical answerable questions were suggested by the retinal specialists (internal members) regarding the different aspects of DR. Literature review of each question was summarized in 4 tables. Clinical question components along with its recommendations from the selected CPGs; details of the supporting articles with their level of evidences; recommendations of retinal specialists (internal members) respecting its clinical benefits, cost and side effects; revised recommendations based on its customizing capability (applicability, acceptability, external validity) were recorded in tables 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. Customized recommendations were sent to the external faculty members of all universities across the country to score the recommendations from 1 to 9.

The agreed recommendations were accepted as the final recommendations while the non-agreed ones were revised again. Finally, 29 customized recommendations were codified along with their sources and level of evidences.

It seems that this customized CPG of DR management is effectively useful in standardization of referral, diagnosis and treatment of the patients with diabetes.