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Google Successfully Uses Machine Learning To Detect Diabetic Retinopathy (betanews.com)
BrianFagioli writes from a report via BetaNews: Diabetic eye disease is caused by retinopathy. Affected diabetics can have small tears inside the eye, causing bleeding. Over time, they can lose vision, and ultimately, they can go blind. Luckily, Google has been trying to use machine learning to detect diabetic retinopathy. Guess what? The search giant has seen much success. Not only are the computers able to detect the disease at the same level as ophthalmologists, but Google is actually slightly better! "A few years ago, a Google research team began studying whether machine learning could be used to screen for diabetic retinopathy (DR). Today, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, we've published our results: a deep learning algorithm capable of interpreting signs of DR in retinal photographs, potentially helping doctors screen more patients, especially in underserved communities with limited resources," says Lily Peng, MD Ph.D., Product Manger at Google. She goes on to say "our algorithm performs on par with the ophthalmologists, achieving both high sensitivity and specificity. [...] For example, on the validation set described in Figure 2, the algorithm has a F-score of 0.95, which is slightly better than the median. F-score of the 8 ophthalmologists we consulted (measured at 0.91)."
Exactly. Speaking as a thirty year type one diabetic who has gone through the "waking up with black spots" phase (whoops, there's your retinopathy), having it confirmed by the doc (more like, they inject you with this crazy neon yellow fluid and shoot a bright light into your eyes looking for the exact areas of damage), and the two month long series of laser treatments to stop the retinal bleeding (dear heaven, thank you for the miracles of modern medicine - not to mention my sexy ophthalmologist) and ongoing work with the endocrinologist to get my blood sugar back in control... to the OP, denial of your condition (assuming you're diabetic) will only bring the complications on sooner. Management, baby - that's all we've got for the time being.
Nonsense. Diabetic retinopathy is very treatable. (It's actually probably the most valuable thing I myself do during my working week.)
Certainly it doesn't always work in every case. But that's true of any treatment you care to mention.
Panretinal photocoagulation (with lasers) has saved the sight of hundreds of thousands of people. Over the past few years, on top of this, there have been major advances using antiVEGF treatments like Lucentis/ranibizumab.
It is *eminently* worthwhile for diabetics to be screened for eye disease. The problem is not that we can't treat it - it's that treatment is best done *before* the patient notices any problem. Hence, screening.
Aberrations have appeared in my destiny prognostication engine!
That's exactly wrong and terrible advice if any diabetic believes it. Diabetic retinopathy is best treated (and often urgently *needs* treatment to prevent permanent damage) *before* the patient notices symptoms.( I am an ophthalmologist who specialises in exactly this field.)
Aberrations have appeared in my destiny prognostication engine!
Blowing my mod points for the opportunity to clarify why we screen for diabetic retinopathy: By the time a diabetic patient has visible diabetic retinopathy, laser photocoagulation treatment cannot always repair the damage. The goal is to find the bleeding before risking significant visual loss, when treatment tends to be more successful. This is why most organizations (like the American Diabetes Association) recommend yearly dilated eye exams for diabetic patients. Unfortunately, screening can be expensive for underinsured or uninsured patients, or those without access to ophthalmologists or optometrists. As a primary care physician I asked if I couldn't get trained myself to save the cost for my uninsured patients, and got basically a bunch of eye-rolling. Somewhat like neuropathy, you don't want to be able to self-diagnose it: you want to prevent it before it becomes noticeable, which is awfully close in many patients to the point of also being irreversible. Diabetic neuropathies tend to be easier and cheaper to diagnose currently and don't need a specialist (and could probably be done by patients themselves with monofilament examinations). The same isn't true for the eyeballs —yet.
According to my optician, it's also one of the early signs of diabetes in a lot of people. It's something that they routinely check for (it's very easy to do if you have two photos of the retina from different times and not something that it should be difficult to train an expert system to do). The first time I had my retina photographed, my optician was telling me that the previous week they'd caught early signs of diabetes in a child that they were fitting for glasses: they were able to begin insulin treatments nice and early and significantly reduce the amount of damage that occurred before more obvious symptoms.
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