Computer Vision Inspecting the Human Eye
Matroid's deep-learning system comprising of 3D-CNN helps to automatically detect Glaucoma from a single raw Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) scan. The results are close to human doctors across heterogeneous datasets and scanning environments.
14 Nov, 2022. 1 minute read
Glaucoma, one of the leading causes of irreversible blindness. In a collaboration with Stanford Hospital and hospitals in Hong Kong, India, and Nepal, Matroid is using computer vision to push the boundaries of Ophthalmology. We have created a high-performing deep-learning system comprising of a 3D convolutional neural network that learns to predict glaucoma from areas often ignored by doctors during diagnosis – specifically Lamina Cribrosa, as no established metrics exists yet for this region. We were able to detect glaucoma on OCT scans of the eye, with an F1 score of 96% and similar AUC and accuracy.
Our deep-learning system was trained on a dataset from Stanford Hospital and tested on data from Hong Kong, India, & Nepal to control for race, hospital, technician, and OCT machine. We validated our learned model using saliency maps and world expert clinicians.
As shown below, the nerve fiber layer thickness is used as a metric to track glaucoma. The Lamina Cribrosa is not assigned with any metrics, because clinicians don’t have strongly correlated metrics for it, even though we know it is associated with glaucoma.
Figure 1: Primer on Optic Nerve Head (ONH) Morphology. (a) Color Fundus Image on the Optic Disc. (b) Enface OCT image reconstruction of the Optic Nerve Head. Retina Nerve Fibersconverge at the ONH (known as the optic disc boundary, marked in the black in (b)) and then exit the eyes as the optic nerve. The ONH consists of retinal nerve fibers from the Retinal Ganglion Cell axons leading into the central depression known as the optic cup (boundary marked in red in (b)) and a collagenous structure, known as the Lamina Cribrosa, which provides physical support to the exiting axon fibers. Neuroretinal Rim is the retinal nerve fiber tissue between the border of the cup and the disc. Optic disc cupping characterized by progressive neuroretinal rim thinning, is a result of an increased ratio between the optic cup and disc, called the vertical cup-to-disc ratio (c), a classic feature in glaucoma. Lamina Cribrosa forms the bottom of the optic cup on the inner surface of the ONH.
Matroid's computer vision is making strides in the health care industry and forging the future through technology! Stay tuned for more information regarding our glaucoma project at twitter.com/matroid.