- Researchers in the United Kingdom have devised an innovative artificial intelligence (AI) program that uses retinal images to pick up signs of eye, heart, and neurological disorders.
- RETFound, one of healthcare’s first AI foundation models and ophthalmology’s first, used millions of eye scans to help detect and treat blindness.
- In multiple tests, RETFound surpassed existing AI systems and clinical experts in completing a range of complex diagnostic functions with less labelled data.
- RETFound also accounts for diverse populations and rare diseases, which many traditional scans and current AI systems often miss.
- Furthermore, this ‘transformative technology’ dramatically reduces the workload of human experts in analyzing and labeling retinal imaging.
Experts at Moorfields Eye Hospital and University College London (UCL) Institute of Ophthalmology in England have recently developed an AI system which can detect vision disorders more accurately and efficiently than current methods.
This new technology could also help speed up diagnoses of systemic health issues including stroke, heart attacks, and Parkinson’s disease.
The scientists performed a study on RETFound, their world-first foundation model, which used millions of eye scans from the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). Their open-source initiative may serve as a template for efforts to help detect and treat blindness with AI.
This novel development brings promising news in time for World Retina Day on September 27, World Sight Day in October, and Diabetic Eye Disease Awareness Month in November.
Senior author Prof. Pearse Keane of UCL Institute of Ophthalmology said in a press release:
“This is another big step towards using AI to reinvent the eye examination for the 21st century, both in the UK and globally. We show several exemplar conditions where RETFound can be used, but it has the potential to be developed further for hundreds of other sight-threatening eye diseases that we haven’t yet…
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