Verily, the Life Sciences unit of Google parent Alphabet, has developed, with Google, a machine learning algorithm that can assess images for diabetic eye diseases. This automated screening tool checks for two leading causes of blindness seen in India – diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema. The goal of detecting these diseases with the tool is to expand access to screening and detecting these ailments as soon as possible to bring about better and quicker treatments.
Diagnostics based on the usage of artificial intelligence holds the promise of expanding limited healthcare resources to reach more people, thus directing more patients who need specialist care into the right professional hands. In April, FDA approved the first autonomous artificial intelligence diagnostic system in the US, where the cloud-based IDx-DR software detected diabetic retinopathy in images taken by retinal cameras. But, in India, with the shortage of eye doctors and limited screening of people with diabetes, eye diseases often go undiagnosed and untreated. This is why Verily came up with this clinical research program focused on India, where the algorithm is shown to be on par with the assessment of images for eye diseases with general ophthalmologists and retinal specialists. In fact, this algorithm has also received the CE approval.
In this retinal diagnostic program, a technician is required to take one image per eye using a fundus camera. The pictures are them uploaded via a management software. The screening algorithm assesses the images for diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema. The results are rapid, which helps the technician to decide whether the patient must be referred to a specialist eye doctor or not. These efforts are being focused more on how the program can be extended to vision centers in remote and rural communities, where about 70% of India’s population lives.
At present, Verily has launched this algorithm at Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai, India. Now, it is launching a study with Rajavithi Hospital, operated by the Ministry of Public Health in Thailand, to study the usage of this algorithm in a national screening program for diabetic retinopathy. Furthermore, Verily is also collaborating with Nikon and its subsidiary Optos, to evaluate additional geographies where machine learning tools for diabetic eye disease screening can have an impact.
In August, a study of Google’s DeepMind artificial intelligence system, which was developed in partnership with Moorfields Eye Hospital in the UK, showed how the technology could determine how patients should be referred for more than 50 eye diseases, with the same accuracy as a physician!
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