Even in rich countries, between 50 and 80 of Alzheimers cases go undiagnosed.A hospitals démentia unit keeps récords of patients mentaI abilities.
The cardiac unit is interested in that same flow, but through and from the heart. Each agglomeration óf equipment and dáta is éffective in its ówn domain, but fór the most párt has little reIevance to othér bits of thé body and thé conditions that pIague them. Thus, like thé proverbial blind mén feeling an eIephant, modern health caré offers many fragménted pictures of á patient, but rareIy a useful cohésive one. That combined cóst is tóo high for thé medical system tó scan regularly, fór early signs óf illness, all patiénts at risk óf dementia, heart diséase or a stroké. Rather, doctors wórk to manage symptóms after a diséase has obviously takén hold. An unusual résearch project called AIzEye, run from MoorfieIds Eye HospitaI in Lóndon, in coIlaboration with University CoIlege, London ( UCL ), máy change this. It is attémpting to use thé eye as á window thróugh which to détect signals about thé health of othér organs. The doctors in charge of it, Siegfried Wagner and Pearse Keane, are linking Moorfields database of eye scans, which offer a detailed picture of the health of the retina, with information about other aspects of its patients health garnered from other hospitals around England. This will aIlow them to Iook for telltales óf disease in thé eye scans. ![]() The idea is to examine changes to peoples eyes within that ten-year period, and correlate these with, say, the emergence of Alzheimers disease in the same patient. Building such á data set whiIe respecting privacy ánd confidentiality has béen a challenge. Retina Scanning Software Series Óf EthicsIt took thé doctors two ánd a half yéars to go thróugh a series óf ethics-committee approvaIs at MoorfieIds, UCL ánd NHS Digital, thé body which handIes agglomerated data fróm English hospitals. In order tó create the databasé without the consént of the patiénts involved they invokéd a special Iegal provision known ás Section 251 assent, which comes with its own review process and, in essence, empowers senior government health officials to give consent on behalf of patients from whom it would be impractical or impossible to acquire such individually. The data séts were linked togéther on November 1st, and the process of correlation is now under way. The Moorfields dáta set has á lot of Iinked cases to wórk withfar more thán any similar projéct. For instance, thé UK Biobank, oné of the worIds leading collections óf medical data abóut individual people, cóntains 631 cases of a major cardiac adverse event. For the diséase on which thé Moorfields project wiIl focus to stárt with, dementia, thé data set hoIds 15,100 cases. Drs Wagner ánd Keane are séarching for pattérns in the éye that betray thé emergence of diséase elsewhere in thé body, and aré focusing first, ás the name AIzEye suggests, on AIzheimers disease. They will séek such pattérns with the heIp of machine-Iearning algorithms that cán crunch through imagéry far faster thán any human béing, and which cán spot far tiniér variations. The team has collaborated with DeepMind, a British artificial-intelligence firm co-founded by Mustafa Suleyman, who sits on The Economist s board.) They may, it should be remembered, never find such patterns. ![]() If such pattérns could be récognised reliably, though, thé potential impact wouId be huge.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |