Review Article

Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Ophthalmology: General Overview

Table 5

Studies on eye diseases using DL techniques.

GroupsAimData setsDeep learning techniquesPerformanceConclusions

Gulshan et al. [6] (Google Inc.)DR detectionPublic:
EyePACS, Messidor 128175 fundus images
DCNNAUC
0.991 for EyePACS
0.990 for Messidor
The DCNN had high sensitivity and specificity for detecting referable DR (moderate and worse DR, referable diabetic macular edema, or both)

Gargeya and Leng [46] (Byers Eye Institute at Stanford)DR detectionPublic:
EyePACS, Messidor, E-ophtha 77348 fundus images
DCNNAUC
0.94 for Messidor data set
0.95 for E-ophtha data set
The DCNN can be used to screen fundus images to identify DR with high reliability

Quellec et al. [7] (Brest University)DR detection heatmaps creationPublic:
Kaggle, DiaretDB, E-ophtha 196590 fundus images
CNNAUC = 0.954 in Kaggle’s data set
AUC = 0.949 in E-ophtha data set
The proposed method is a promising image mining tool to discover new biomarkers in images. The model trained to detect referable DR can detect some lesions and outperforms recent algorithms trained to detect those lesions specifically

Ardiyanto et al. [63] (Universitas Gadjah Mada)DR gradingPublic:
FINDeRS 315 fundus images
CNNDetection
Accuracy: 95.71%
Sensitivity: 76.92%
Specificity: 100%
Grading
Accuracy: 60.28%
Sensitivity: 65.40%
Specificity: 73.37%
The network needs more data to train. And, this work opens up the future possibility to establish an integrated DR system to grade the severity at a low cost

ElTanboly et al. [66] (Mansoura University)DR detectionLocal:
52 SD-OCT scans
DFCNAUC: 0.98
Accuracy: 92%
Sensitivity: 83%
Specificity: 100%
The proposed CAD system for early DR detection using the OCT retinal images has good outcome and outperforms than other 4 conventional classifiers

Prahs et al. [100] (Department of Ophthalmology, University of Regensburg)Give an indication of the treatment of anti-VEGF injectionLocal:
183,402 OCT B-scans
DCNN (GoogLeNet)AUC: 0.968
Accuracy: 95.5%
Sensitivity: 90.1%
Specificity: 96.2%
The DCNN neural networks are effective in assessing OCT scans with regard to treatment indication with anti-VEGF medications

Abràmoff et al. [62] (University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics)DR detectionPublic:
Messidor 1748 fundus images
CNNReferable DR:
AUC: 0.980
Sensitivity: 96.8%
Specificity: 87%
Vision threatening DR:
AUC: 0.989
Sensitivity: 100%
Specificity: 90.8%
The DL enhanced algorithms have the potential to improve the efficiency of DR screening

Takahashi et al. [65] (Department of Ophthalmology, Jichi Medical University)DR gradingLocal:
9939 fundus images
DCNN (GoogLeNet)Accuracy: 0.64∼0.82The proposed novel AI disease-staging system have the ability to grade DR involving retinal areas not typically visualized on fundoscopy

Abbas et al. [64] (Surgery Department and Glaucoma Unity, University Hospital Puerta del Mar, Cádiz)DR gradingPublic:
Messidor, DiaretDB, FAZ
500 fundus images
Local: 250 fundus images
DNNAUC: 0.924
Sensitivity: 92.18%
Specificity: 94.50%
The system is appropriate for early detection of DR and provides an effective treatment for prediction type of diabetes

Chen et al. [73] (Institute for Infocomm Research, Agency for Science, Technology and Research; Singapore National Eye Centre)Glaucoma detectionPublic:
Origa, Sces 2326 fundus images
DCNNAUC:
0.831 for Origa
0.887 for Sces
Present a DL framework for glaucoma detection based on DCNN

Li et al. [89] (Institute for Infocomm Research, Agency for Science, Technology and Research)Glaucoma detectionPublic:
Origa 650 fundus images
DCNN (AlexNet, VGG-19, VGG-16, GoogLeNet)Best AUC: 0.8384
AlexNet > VGG-19 ≈ VG-16 > GoogLeNet
The proposed method that integrates both local and holistic features of optic disc to detect glaucoma is reliable

Asaoka et al. [91] (Department of Ophthalmology, The University of Tokyo)Preperimetric OAG detectionLocal:
279 VFs
DFNNAUC: 92.6%Using a deep FNN can distinguish preperimetric glaucoma VFs from healthy VFs with very high accuracy, which is better than the outcome obtained from ML techniques

Muhammad et al. [92] (Department of Physiology, Weill Cornell Medicine)Glaucoma detectionLocal:
612 single wide-field OCT images
DCNN (AlexNet)Accuracy: 65.7%∼92.4%The proposed protocol outperforms standard OCT and VF in distinguishing healthy suspect eyes from eyes with early glaucoma

Li et al. [90] (Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University)Glaucoma detectionLocal:
8000 fundus images
DCNN (GoogleNet)AUC: 0.986
Sensitivity: 95.6%
Specificity: 92%
DL can be applied to detect referable glaucomatous optic neuropathy with high sensitivity and specificity

Burlina et al. [104] (Retina Division, Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine)AMD GradingPublic:
AREDS 5664 fundus images
DCNNAccuracy
79.4% (4-class)
81.5% (3-class)
93.4% (2-class)
Demonstrates comparable performance between computer and physician grading

Burlina et al. [103] (Retina Division, Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine)AMD detectionPublic:
AREDS 130000 fundus images
DCNN (AlexNet)AUC: 0.94∼0.96
Accuracy: 88.4%∼91.6%
Applying a DL-based automated assessment of AMD from fundus images can produce results that are similar to human performance levels

Treder et al. [105] (Department of Ophthalmology, University of Münster Medical Center)AMD detectionLocal:
1112 SD-OCT images
DCNNSensitivity: 100%
Specificity: 92%
Accuracy: 96%
With the DL-based approach, it is possible to detect AMD in SD-OCT with good outcome. With more image data, the model can get more practical value in clinical decisions

Gao et al. [111] (Microsoft Research Asia and Singapore Eye Research Institute)Nuclear cataracts gradingPublic:
ACHIKO-NC 5378 slit-lamp images
CNN and SVMAccuracy: 70.7%The proposed method is useful for assisting and improving diagnosis of the disease in the background of large-population screening and has the potential to be applied to other eye diseases

Long et al. [114] (Zhongshan Ophthalmic Centre, Sun Yat-sen University)Pediatric cataracts detectionLocal:
CCPMOH 886 slit-lamp images
DCNNAccuracy
98.87% (detection)
97.56% (treatment suggestion)
The AI agent using DL have the ability to accurately diagnose and provide treatment decisions for congenital cataracts. And the AI agent and individual ophthalmologists perform equally well. A cloud-based platform integrated with the AI agent for multihospital collaboration was built to improve disease management

Choi et al. [120] (Department of Ophthalmology, Yonsei University College of Medicine)Multiple retinal diseases detectionPublic:
STARE 397 fundus images
DCNN (VGG-19)Accuracy
30.5% (all categories were included)
36.7% (using ensemble classifiers)
72.8% (considering only normal, DR and AMD)
As the number of categories increased, the performance of the DL model has declined. Several ensemble classifiers enhanced the multicategorical classification performance. Large data sets should be applied to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed model