Diagnostics of retinal pathologies by optical coherence tomography images using artificial intelligence tools

Abstract

The importance of early detection and monitoring of retinal diseases determines the relevance of the study devoted to the diagnosis of retinal pathologies by OCT images using artificial intelligence (AI) tools.The purpose is to develop algorithms for diagnosing retinal pathologies from OCT images by machine learning methods. Material and methods . The study used a dataset (20,000 eyes), publicly available on the Internet, which contains OCT images of healthy retina (5,000 eyes) and retina affected by three different pathologies (choroid neovascularization, macular edema, multiple drusen, 15,000 eyes). The retinal pathology recognition system is based on a trained neural network VGG16 (developed by a visual geometry group of Oxford University). Results . The main result of the research is the development of an algorithm, implemented on Python, for the diagnosis of retinal diseases from OCT images based on convolutional neural network AI tool. The sensitivity and selectiveness of the neural network model during the diagnosis of retinal diseases were 97 and 98%, respectively. Conclusion . AI methods used in the retinal pathology automatic detection system developed at the Helmholtz National Medical Research Center of Eye Diseases as part of automated medical decision-making system have been shown to have high potential and efficiency. In the future, this service can be used to improve the effectiveness of early diagnosis and monitoring of retinal diseases in conditions of reduced availability of primary ophthalmological care in some of the territories of the Russian Federation, including that provided at the pre-doctoral stage.