Data scientists and clinical researchers are working with high street opticians to develop a digital tool that can predict a person’s dementia risk from a routine eye test.
It is estimated that the digital innovation could save the NHS £37m per year.
The NeurEYE research team, led by the University of Edinburgh, with Glasgow Caledonian University, has collected almost a million eye scans from opticians across Scotland, forming the world’s largest data set of its kind.
Scientists will then use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to analyse the image data, linked to relevant patient data on demographics, treatment history and pre-existing conditions.
This data is anonymised so patients cannot be identified, but it allows researchers to find patterns that could indicate a person’s risk of developing dementia, as well as giving a broad picture of brain health.
The project is the second to be funded and supported by NEURii. The first NEURii project, SCAN-DAN, uses brain scans and AI to predict dementia risk.
NEURii is a global collaboration between the pharmaceutical company Eisai, Gates Ventures, the University of Edinburgh, the medical research charity LifeArc and the national health data science institute Health Data Research UK.
Professor of Clinical Ophthalmology at the University of Edinburgh and NeurEYE co-lead, Baljean Dhillon, said: ‘The eye can tell us far more than we thought possible. The blood vessels and neural pathways of retina and brain are intimately related. But, unlike the brain, we can see the retina with the simple, inexpensive equipment found in every high street in the UK and beyond.’
Dr Dave Powell, chief scientific officer at LifeArc – one of the NEURii collaborators – said there was great potential in the work being done.
‘Harnessing the potential of digital innovations in this way could ultimately save the NHS more than £37m a year because the hope is that it will speed up the diagnosis and treatment of neurodegenerative conditions like dementia,’ he said.
Optometrist Ian Cameron, who runs Cameron Optometry in Edinburgh, said it made sense for opticians to take on the role of ‘GP of the eyes and monitor as much health as we can see’ because they saw the same people, year after year.
‘What is new is that, with AI, we can see even more, and that is extremely powerful,’ he said.
Optometrists will be able to use the software subsequently developed as a predictive or diagnostic tool for conditions such as Alzheimer’s. Using it as a triage tool, they could then refer patients to secondary health services if signs of brain disease are spotted.
There is also the potential of using it as a way to monitor cognitive decline.
The data will be held safely in the Scottish National Safe Haven which provides a secure platform for the research use of NHS electronic data. This resource is commissioned by Public Health Scotland and hosted by the Edinburgh International Data Facility through EPCC at the University of Edinburgh.
