For more than a century, doctors have been able to determine signs of disease by looking at the fundus of a patient's eye. A finding that led a team of researchers to develop an artificial intelligence algorithm capable of detecting the risk of heart disease in less than a minute by analyzing the veins and arteries of the eye.
From code to clinic
In summary, the characteristics of the ocular vasculature are affected by cardiac health. The software can thus make predictions about the subject's heart conditions according to the specificities of this visible blood network.
In concrete terms, this technology will enable the development of a rapid, inexpensive and non-invasive means of detecting heart disease, without taking blood or measuring blood pressure. We can even imagine seeing it one day join the smartphone functionalities dedicated to health, via the selfie camera of an iPhone for example.
In the meantime, the technology continues to be tested and improved, and researchers are already wondering how to go from "code to the clinic", or to transform this research into a real diagnostic tool. Source: British Journal of Ophthalmology