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DeepMind and Google Healthhavedeveloped an AI that can predict wholl get one of the worlds most common causes of blindness.

The system was built to detect age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a disease that afflicts more than 25% of over-60s in Europeand up to 11 million people in the US.

There are two types of the disease: a dry form, which often only causes mild sight loss, and a wet one, which can lead to permanent blindness.

[Read:This AI detects eye disease in newborn babies]

Currently, Ophthalmologists diagnose AMD by analyzing 3D scans of the eye. But these highly detailed images are time-consuming to review.DeepMinds researchers suspected that AI could more quickly detect the symptoms of patients needing urgent treatment which could ultimately save their sight.

The teamtrained their model onan anonymized datasetof retinal scansfrom 2,795 patients who had been diagnosed with wet AMD.

They then used two neural networks to detect the disease by analyzing 3D eye scans and labeling features that offered clues about the diseases. The system uses this data to estimate whether the patient would develop wet ADM within the next six months.

DeepMind claims that the system predicted the onset of wet AMD as well as human experts and in some cases was even more accurate.

Pearse Keane, an ophthalmologist who worked on the project, said the system could act as an early warning sign for the disease:

With this work, we havent solved AMD but I think weve just added another big piece of the puzzle.

The next step is validating the algorithm so it can be used in clinical trials. In time, it could even help doctorsdevelop treatments for the disease.

Published May 19, 2020 17:51 UTC

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New AI from DeepMind and Google can detect a common cause of blindness - The Next Web