Tech breakthrough to cure diabetic retinopathy

Hyderabad: Diabetes is an epidemic in India it also can cause vision loss due to a complication called Diabetic retinopathy, however it can be prevented with early detection and timely treatment. Artificial intelligence along with smart phone retinal photography can be helpful in creating cost-effective automated screening of diabetic retinopathy. 

The retinal photos in a new study were graded by the retina specialists as well as by the automated software for detecting and classifying retinopathy and an analysis of the comparative predictions were done. This new study published in the international ‘Eye’ journal, published by the Springer Nature group by Dr R Rajalakshmi senior ophthalmologist from Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF) and colleagues showed that use of automated artificial intelligence along with smartphone based retinal imaging has very high sensitivity for detecting retinopathy 95.8 Percent and sight threatening diabetic retinopathy 99.1 percent.

This is possibly the first study that has looked at the role and accuracy of automated artificial intelligence AI based analysis in smartphone based retinal imaging.

Earlier diabetic retinopathy could only be detected by trained ophthalmologists and retina specialists with the help of retinal cameras. Now smart-phone based retinal imaging has emerged as one of the cost-effective ways of screening for retinopathy. Artificial intelligence can now be used to grade retinal images of people with diabetes and determine which patients have retinopathy needing urgent referral to the ophthalmologist.