AI Eye Checks Can Predict Heart Disease Risk In Less Than Minute, Finds Study

An artificial intelligence tool that scans eyes can accurately predict a person’s risk of heart disease in less than a minute, researchers say. […] Researchers developed a fully automated AI-enabled tool, Quartz, to assess the potential of retinal vasculature imaging — plus known risk factors — to predict vascular health and death. They used the tool to scan images from 88,052 UK Biobank participants aged 40 to 69. The researchers looked specifically at the width, vessel area and degree of curviness of the arteries and veins in the retina to develop prediction models for stroke, heart attack and death from circulatory disease. They subsequently applied the models to the retinal images of 7,411 participants, aged 48 to 92, of the European prospective investigation into cancer (Epic)-Norfolk study. The performance of Quartz was compared with the widely used Framingham risk scores framework.

Everyone’s health was tracked for an average of seven to nine years. In men, the width, curviness and width variation of veins and arteries in their retinas were found to be important predictors of death from circulatory disease. In women, artery area and width and vein curviness and width variation contributed to risk prediction. The AI tool harnessed data from participants including any history of smoking, drugs to treat high blood pressure, and previous heart attacks. Researchers found the retina data computed by Quartz was significantly associated with cardiovascular disease, deaths and strokes, with similar predictive performance to the Framingham clinical risk score. Their findings were published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.