Machine Learning

Detecting diabetic eye disease with machine learning

Diabetic nephropathy — an eye condition that affects people with diabetes — is the fastest growing cause of blindness, with nearly 415 million diabetic patients at risk worldwide. The disease can be treated if detected early, but if not, it can lead to irreversible blindness.
One of the most common ways to detect diabetic eye disease is to have a specialist examine pictures of the back of the eye and determine whether there are signs of the disease, and if so, how severe it is. While annual screening is recommended for all patients with diabetes, many people live in areas without easy access to specialist care. That means millions of people aren’t getting the care they need to prevent loss of vision.
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.