A physician screens a patient in Rwanda for diabetic retinopathy. Credit: Nimũ Mathenge/Orbis International In October, after almost a decade of work, Google licensed its artificial intelligence (AI) model for detecting the eye disease diabetic retinopathy to three health-care technology companies — two in India and one in Thailand. It came with a condition: the firms have to provide six million free AI screenings to people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) over the next ten years.
“They will be setting up their own business models, but on the side, they will also be delivering screenings to people who need it the most but can’t afford it,” says Sunny Virmani, project manager at Google Health in Mountain View, California. “Blindness from diabetic retinopathy is completely preventable, and the fact that we have not been able to do effective screening in some of these places shouldn’t be forgiven.” Nature Outlook: Vision Of the 43 million people in the world who are blind or visually impaired, almost 90% live in LMICs. There are many social and economic issues that contribute to this: living in rural communities can hinder people’s ability to access health care, and a lack of health literacy can lead some people to think that blindness is a normal and untreatable consequence of ageing. Low-income countries also have only 3–4 ophthalmologists per one million people; in high-income countries, this number is about 76 per one million people.
Using AI to screen for and diagnose eye conditions, such as glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy could help to lower the burden of visual impairment. Research suggests that the technology reduces the need for specialists, makes care more accessible and improves adherence to follow-up visits. But the real-world cost of AI screening remains uncertain, and hiccups encountered during the deployment of these tools could reduce their effectiveness.
Ophthalmology is primed for the use of diagnostic AI technology. “There is lots of imaging data that has been collected for many years as a routine practice, and that data is perfect for training AI models,” says Charles Cleland, an ophthalmologist and researcher at the London […]
Artificial intelligence could boost eye care in low-income countries
