A recent scientific study from the UK has developed Quartz, an AI-enabled tool, to evaluate known risk factors and the potential of retinal vasculature imaging to predict vascular health and date of death.

They used the AI-enabled Quartz tool to scan images of 88,000 UK Biobank participants aged 40 to 69 from the UK Biobank (Biological warehouse).

Says Estimated Risk of Death

To develop predictive models for stroke, heart attack, and death, the researchers looked specifically at the width, vessel area, and degree of curvature of arteries and veins in the retina and focused on diseases of the circulatory system.

They then applied the models to retinal images of 7,411 participants aged 48 to 92 years in the cancer research (Epic)-Norfolk study conducted in Europe. The performance of the AI-powered Quartz tool was compared to the widely used Framingham risk scores framework.

The width, curvature, and width variation of veins and arteries in the retinas of men were found to be important predictors of death from circulatory disease.

In women, variation in this artery area and width and vessel curvature and width contributed to the estimation of mortality risk.

The researchers found that the retinal data calculated by Quartz was significantly associated with predictive performance of cardiovascular disease, death, and stroke, similar to the Framingham clinical risk score.

Detects Diseases Instantly

In other words, these eye checks made by artificial intelligence can predict the risk of heart disease in less than a minute. This means that this eye scanning AI tool can accurately predict a person's risk of heart disease and the likelihood of premature death in less than a minute.

The findings of the study were published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.