Artificial intelligence for diabetic retinopathy screening in Africa

In The Lancet Digital Health, Vallentina Bellemo and colleagues describe the use of artificial intelligence (AI) as a possible solution to mitigate these screening issues and reduce blindness from diabetic retinopathy.6 Using AI for digital retinopathy screening will allow non-clinicians to be trained on retinal imaging, obtaining interpretation of the images within minutes and thus giving patients instant feedback. In Africa, this task shifting to non-clinical staff will spare ophthalmologists valuable time and also allow patients, who often travel for long distances to screening centres, to return home or progress to eye clinics with an answer on their diabetic retinopathy status without waiting for feedback from reading centres, which often necessitates an extra journey for them.