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Sirisian t1_irfidkr wrote

Reply to comment by bajo2292 in AI tool can scan your retina and predict your risk of heart disease ‘in 60 seconds or less’ by chrisdh79

It's mentioned in the article:

> The software works by analyzing the web of blood vessels contained within the retina of the eye. It measures the total area covered by these arteries and veins, as well as their width and “tortuosity” (how bendy they are). All these factors are affected by an individual’s heart health, allowing the software to make predictions about a subject’s risk from heart disease just by looking at a non-invasive snapshot of their eye.

It's also mentioned their dataset is skewed toward UK demographics so they'll need more data to cover a wider population.

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rickg t1_irfkmui wrote

If they want to PREDICT they'll need to scan an otherwise healthy person without heart disease and then give odds on that person developing heart issues. Otherwise they're not predicting risk, they're diagnosing current health.

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Sirisian t1_irfm6ho wrote

Not necessarily. A lot of health complications start as subtle symptoms that grow. With enough independent data it's possible to extrapolate current blood vessel configurations with future states. That is even though a lot of samples are different people there's a transition from "good" to "bad" states that should be detectable at certain points. Just reading the current health might be enough to determine if one is on the slope toward bad health by identifying features in the blood vessels that aren't in healthy sample.

Being able to do very detailed scans like they are seems to give them this level of features to make these predictions. That said you're probably right. Having scans over time from the same individuals would probably help even more with seeing any good/bad transitions.

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Jatzy_AME t1_irfyty0 wrote

Doesn't matter. If they want to train the algo to detect early signs, they need longitudinal data (image of retina long enough before potential diagnosis). Collecting such data will take time, by definition, so they won't be able to extend to wider population soon. In any case, I'd be very careful with claims of AI diagnoses. There are many many ways to hide bs in these project.

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qtqtc t1_irg7c5y wrote

I'm waiting now, till sponsors of the research saying things like: "and now put that into a blockchain!"

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