Effectiveness of artificial intelligence for diabetic retinopathy screening in community in Binh Dinh Province, Vietnam.

Purpose: The objective of this study is to evaluate the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of artificial intelligence (AI) for diabetic retinopathy (DR) screening in community in Binh Dinh Province in Vietnam.

Materials and methods: This retrospective, descriptive, cross-sectional study assessed the DR screening efficacy of EyeArt system v2.0 by analyzing 2332 nonmydriatic digital fundus pictures of 583 diabetic patients from hospitals and health centers in Binh Dinh province. First, we selected thirty patients with 120 digital fundus pictures to perform the Kappa index by two eye doctors who would be responsible for the DR clinical feature evaluation and DR severity scale classification. Second, all digital fundus pictures were coded and then sent to the two above-mentioned eye doctors for the evaluation and classifications according to the International Committee of Ophthalmology's guidelines. Finally, DR severity scales with EyeArt were compared with those by eye doctors as a reference standard for EyeArt's effectiveness. All the data were analyzed using the SPSS software version 20.0. Values (with confidence interval 95%) of sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy were calculated according to DR state, referable or not and vision-threatening DR state or not. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results: The sensitivity and specificity of EyeArt for DR screening were 94.1% and 87.2%. The sensitivity and specificity for referable DR and vision-threatening DR were 96.6%, 90.1%, and 100.0%, 92.2%. Accuracy for DR screening, referable DR, and vision-threatening DR were 88.9%, 91.4%, and 93.0%, respectively.

Conclusion: EyeArt AI was effective for DR screening in community.