Researchers from Verily, Google’s health subsidiary, have developed an algorithm that should allow doctors to obtain an inventory of cardiovascular health of their patients from a simple retinal scan.
To develop this new screening tool, the researchers tested the algorithm on more than 284,000 patients and then validated the tests on two independent databases of 12,000 and 999 patients.
Predict “Major Adverse Cardiac Events”
Images of the blood vessels of the retina made it possible to determine a person’s age, his blood pressure or even to know if she smokes, if she has diabetes or if she had already had a heart attack. From these parameters, the researchers were able to predict “major adverse cardiac events”.
“Further testing will be needed before this latest method can be used in a clinical setting” said Michael McConnell, head of heart health innovations at Verily. But if the results are confirmed, the retinal scan could offer a quick, cheap and non-invasive way to prevent heart disease.
The study was published in Nature magazine.
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