IBM's AI can detect glaucoma from eye scans

It's also frighteningly common: 3.5% of the population aged 40 years or older (about 60.5 million in 2010) has been diagnosed with the disease, and the number is expected to steeply rise in the next year. Early detection and treatment is essential -- glaucoma progresses irreversibly and almost imperceptibly. Toward that end, scientists at IBM Research and New York University describe in a paper a noninvasive technique that uses AI to detect patterns characteristic of glaucoma in retina imaging data. It's scheduled to be presented at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology later this month in Vancouver. "From a biological point of view, we know there are associations between visual function and retinal structure," wrote senior research scientist and manager at IBM Research Australia Rahil Garnavi in a blog post.