PERRON PAEDIATRIC RETINOPATHY INITIATIVE
Professor Chandra Balaratnasingam & Finn
Lions Eye Institute have released a new video outlining the progress and future ambitions of the Perron Paediatric Retinopathy Initiative (PPRI), which launched in 2021 with the support of the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation.
The PPRI brings together clinicians, researchers and patients in an effort to better understand, prevent and treat long-term complications arising from diabetes, including kidney failure and irreversible vision loss.
Since its inception, the PPRI has enrolled hundreds of Western Australian kids in a screening program designed to detect conditions like macular ischemia, a deterioration of tiny blood vessels in the eye and a key factor in diabetic vision loss.
The efficacy of this screening process means that none of the enrolled patients have experienced vision loss, and the program has also made significant improvements in the delivery of retinal evaluations for children living in remote and regional parts of WA.
Professor Chandra Balaratnasingam, a lead researcher overseeing the PPRI’s work, said the program aims to ensure that every child diagnosed with diabetes in WA receives on-time screening for vision loss.
“I would say that in 2019, probably only one in 20 children in WA were receiving screening for diabetic retinopathy. Now, by partnering with Perth Children’s Hospital and Diabetes WA, all children diagnosed with diabetes are referred to our diabetic screening clinic.”
“We develop treatment and management plans for patients at the very first signs of vision loss, as well as researching new ways to detect diabetic retinopathy much, much earlier.”
Associate Professor Paula Yu said research conducted by the PPRI had also contributed to a better understanding of the link between diabetes and eye health — a key step towards developing treatments that can slow or reverse vision loss.
“Our team has made significant contributions to science, helping us understand how blood vessels in the eye respond to diabetes. This knowledge is shaping new treatments that could prevent blindness,” said Associate Professor Yu.
These advancements provide renewed hope for young Western Australians like Finn, who appears in the video sharing his experiences of living with Type 1 Diabetes.
“High glucose levels caused by diabetes can lead to blindness and other diseases, and that’s a real fear I live with,” said Finn, a sixteen-year-old who was diagnosed with the condition shortly after his third birthday.
“Thanks to the Lions Eye Institute, the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation, Telethon and all those who support this research, I live with hope and look forward to the future. I know that my dreams of travelling the world and becoming a psychologist remain a possibility.”
For more information visit: lei.org.au/about/news/ppri-2025
Physiology and Pharmacology Research Group at the Lions Eye Institute
Published: December 2025