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A new kind of eye test could soon be available that can identify a leading cause of severe sight loss three years before symptoms start to develop.

The new test has been developed with the help of AI and can predict the onset of wet macular degeneration, a chronic eye disorder that causes blurred vision or a blind spot in the visual field.

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The researchers say, if all goes well it, within two years it could be used in hospitals to identify the disease early enough so that treatment can effectively prevent any vision loss.

Our new test was able to predict new wet AMD lesions up to 36 months in advance of them occurring and that is huge, said University College London Professor Francesca Cordeiro.

It can guide a clinician into treating more intensively those patients who are at high risk of new lesions of wet AMD and also be used as a screening tool, he said.

This is a very encouraging development in tackling the leading cause of blindness, added Sherine Krause, head of eye research charity Fight for Sight.

The test, called DARC (Detection of Apoptosing Retinal Cells), involves injecting a fluorescent dye into the arm that attaches to retinal cells, and illuminates those that are undergoing stress or in the process of apoptosis, a form of programmed cell death.

The damaged cells appear bright white when viewed in eye examinations the more damaged cells detected, the higher the DARC count. DARC is being commercialised by Novai, a newly formed company.

Wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), also known as macular disease, is the most common cause of permanent and severe sight loss in the UK.

The study, funded by Wellcome, is published in the journal Expert Review of Molecular Diagnostics. It also involved the Western Eye Hospital in London and Imperial College London.

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Eye test developed with AI could identify a leading cause of severe sight loss before symptoms develop - iNews

This entry was posted on December 19, 2020 at 6:59 am and is filed under Eye Sight & Vision. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |