Thirona Retina and Topcon Healthcare together with Eyetelligence Ltd and Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA) joined forces to provide a total solution enabling eye screening through point-of-care testing across the whole country. 

About 5,3% of Australian population (1.3 million people) are suffering from diabetes. Providing accessible eye-screening for patients with diabetes is extremely important to prevent vision loss. However, for distant communities in Australia, this task seems almost impossible. The average patient in Australian remote region must overcome a great distance to the nearest GP to get a referral for the ophthalmologist, not mentioning the fact that there is a limited number of ophthalmologists available in the peripheral areas. 

Still the demand for eye screening in remote communities is high, as diabetic retinopathy seems to prevail among Aboriginal people. 

"We thought diabetic retinopathy affected Aboriginal people as much as non-Aboriginal, but a recent systematic review showed that’s actually not the case; we knew there was a higher prevalence, but we didn’t know retinopathy was worse or severe," says Dr. Arthur Turner from the Lions Eye Institute, Australia.  

Thirona Retina joined forces with Topcon Healthcare to provide on-spot eye screening solution among distant communities. Topcon fundus cameras with RetCAD software have been installed so far in five clinics in various clinical settings, including the Lions Outback Vision Van, optometry and an Aboriginal medical service, with more installations to come in the nearest future. 

"These machines are a fantastic tool taking a colour photo and OCT at same time. With the first 100 eyes compared to retinal specialists, two eyes had incorrect diagnosis and 80% had the correct diagnosis if the probably score of that disease was more than 50%," Turner said. "At the moment, this is all research, however Thirona and Eyetelligence are TGA-approved and can be used in Australia."

RetCAD™ uses state-of-the-art deep learning and computer vision technology utilizing a large amount of retinal images in order to provide precisely quantified clinical evidence. The software assists eye care specialists in early diagnosis and grading of vision threatening diseases, such as Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and Diabetic Retinopathy (DR). Simplified visualization of the scan analysis with heat maps helps to improve patient engagement and prevent severe eyesight problems and blindness. 

"Our goal is to make screening for eye diseases faster, more accurate, and more widely accessible, and we're confident that our AI technology will be able to play a vital role in achieving that goal," says Mark van Grinvsen, managing director of Thirona Retina.