AI-Powered Phone App Detects Cataracts with Impressive Accuracy, New Study Shows

AI-Powered Phone App Detects Cataracts with Impressive Accuracy, New Study Shows

Screening tool expected to help free eye camps reach far more of the people who need cataract surgery.<_o3a_p>

NEW ORLEANS - Since 1963, doctors from the Chattogram Lions Eye Institute & Hospital in Bangladesh have traveled to remote villages to hold free eye camps, offering cataract surgery at no cost to anyone who needs it. The surgery is free. Finding the patients is the hard part. A typical team spends four to five hours in a village, examines about 200 people and identifies 30 to 40 with cataracts. The surrounding area may be home to more than 100,000.<_o3a_p>

"Cataract is treatable, but first you have to find the patient," said Pradipta Chowdhury, MBChB, a medical student and lead author of a study presented this week at the 130th annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.<_o3a_p>

His team's answer is a smartphone app that uses artificial intelligence to examine a photo of the eye and flag a possible cataract. The project is called ALO, the Bengali word for "light." The aim, he said, is to let people begin screening in their own communities, on phones they already own, long before a medical team arrives.<_o3a_p>

The team, which began building the tool in 2024, trained it on 12,439 eye images graded by specialists. The researchers then tested it on 4,000 hospital patients, checking its calls against ophthalmologists' diagnoses.<_o3a_p>

The app classified 3,393 of those cases correctly, an overall accuracy of 96 percent in internal validation and 84.8 percent accuracy maintained during real-world field testing. Of the 607 cases it got wrong, 71 percent fell on the line between immature and mature cataracts. Those are errors of staging, not detection, and they matter less for a tool whose main job is to spot a cataract and send the patient for care, Mr. Chowdhury said.<_o3a_p>

He was careful to say the app is a first step, not a diagnosis. Patients it flags are reviewed by a clinician, who confirms or overrides the result before any treatment. "We are not trying to replace ophthalmologists," he said. "We see AI as an extra screening layer."<_o3a_p>

Cataract Screening in Remote Areas is a Challenge<_o3a_p>

In rural Bangladesh, cataracts cause 85 to 92 percent of blindness. Many patients do not reach an ophthalmologist until the cataract is advanced, or mature. At that stage, Mr. Chowdhury said, small-incision cataract surgery becomes more difficult, with a higher risk of complications and poorer vision afterward.<_o3a_p>

Getting to care has its own price. Patients at the hospital often traveled long distances and waited three to four hours to see an ophthalmologist. "Many were daily-wage earners, so attending also meant losing income for the day," he said.<_o3a_p>

Dedicated screening devices exist, but they cost $400 to $500 apiece and need a trained operator, which limits screening to whoever shows up at a camp. A phone changes that math. "Many remote communities now have access to inexpensive Android phones with decent cameras," Mr. Chowdhury said.<_o3a_p>

Mr. Chowdhury said he was surprised how eager patients were to try it, including those with little formal schooling. "They did not understand the technical details of AI, but they understood the value of knowing whether their sight is at risk," he said.<_o3a_p>

The hospital belongs to the Lions Clubs International network, and Lions-affiliated eye programs in Lebanon, Bahrain, Nepal, Pakistan and Nigeria have asked about running similar pilots. The team hopes to give them access by the end of the year. The longer goal is a free app in local languages and dialects that tells users plainly when and where to seek care.<_o3a_p>

"Many low- and middle-income countries face the same problem," Mr. Chowdhury said. "There are too few eye-care professionals to screen very large populations. Ultimately, we want to move from waiting for patients to find eye care to helping eye care find the patients who need it."<_o3a_p>

About the American Academy of Ophthalmology<_o3a_p>

The American Academy of Ophthalmology is the world's largest association of eye physicians and surgeons. A global community of 32,000 medical doctors, we protect sight and empower lives by setting the standards for ophthalmic education and advocating for our patients and the public. We innovate and support research to advance our profession and to ensure the delivery of the highest-quality eye care. Our EyeSmart® program provides the public with the most trusted information about eye health. For more information, visit aao.org.<_o3a_p>

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