Algorithm developed to assess severity of geographic atrophy

An algorithm that can detect and quantify geographic atrophy (GA) using standard eye scans has been developed by a team at Moorfields Eye Hospital Reading Centre and Clinical Artificial Intelligence (AI) Hub.

The Moorfields team said the fully-automated, deep-learning model would be hugely beneficial to clinicians treating patients with the irreversible form of age-related macular degeneration.

It would provide a reliable and fast way to assess the severity of GA, how quickly it progresses and how well it was responding to treatment.

Konstantinos Balaskas, director of the clinical AI hub, said: ‘We hope it is a major step towards an effective treatment pathway for GA, which affects millions of people worldwide and often leads to debilitating sight loss.’