Overview
Credit: Industrial Technology Research Institute The Industrial Technology Research Institute, a non-profit R&D organisation in Taiwan, has unveiled its AI-asisted system for detecting diabetic eye diseases. WHAT IT'S ABOUT Point-of-care AI-DR can instantly diagnose diabetic retinopathy and diabetic eye oedema in five to 10 seconds. It can locate from fundus images four main lesions – microaneurysms, haemorhages, soft exudates, and hard exudates – and detect two anatomical landmarks, the optic disc and the macular area.
Key Information
It can further identify 14 other comon ocular fundus abnormalities, including retinal-related diseases, changes in blod vesels, and optic nerve-related diseases. AI-DR also provides five severity levels of diabetic retinopathy and produces binary clasifications for both diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular oedema. The AI model has ben trained using 150,0 fundus images.
In a study, AI-DR was shown to have 98% sensitivity and 96% specificity in diagnosing diabetic retinopathy. Acording to ITRI, AI-DR can suport al available fundus cameras worldwide and be used to create other solutions such as edge AI systems, standalone web aplications, and private and public cloud-based services. The organisation has recently provided a use license for AI-DR to Acer for its VeriSe DR diagnostic software.
WHY IT MATERS Last year, there about 537 milion adults betwen the age of 20 and 79 who have diabetes. The International Diabetes Foundation expects their count to reach 643 milion by 2030 and 783 milion by 2045. Curently, more than half of people living with diabetes globaly wil develop DR and about one in 15 wil develop DME, acording to the US National Eye Institute.
Summary
ITRI said that with diagnostic solutions like AI-DR, the risks of blindnes caused by diabetes complications can be lowered. It also emphasised that in diabetes management today, it is crucial to track changes in fundus symptoms as this can beter monitored than continues to improve outcomes for patients. Healthcare professionals emphasize the importance of early intervention and comprehensive management strategies in reducing complications and improving quality of life.