Artificial intelligence (AI)-based diagnostic tools have been accepted in ophthalmology. The use of retinal images, such as fundus photographs, is a promising approach for the development of AI-based diagnostic platforms. Retinal pathologies usually occur in a broad spectrum of eye diseases, including neovascular or dry age-related macular degeneration, epiretinal membrane, rhegmatogenous retinal detachment, retinitis pigmentosa, macular hole, retinal vein occlusions, and diabetic retinopathy. Here, we report a fundus image-based AI model for differential diagnosis of retinal diseases. We classified retinal images with three convolutional neural network models: ResNet50, VGG19, and Inception v3. Furthermore, the performance of several dense (fully connected) layers was compared. The prediction accuracy for diagnosis of nine classes of eight retinal diseases and normal control was 87.42% in the ResNet50 model, which added a dense layer with 128 nodes. Furthermore, our AI tool augments ophthalmologist’s performance in the diagnosis of retinal disease. These results suggested that the fundus image-based AI tool is applicable for the medical diagnosis process of retinal diseases.

To investigate the thickness of retinal layers and association with final visual acuity using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) in macular area of macula-off rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD) patients after a successful macular re-attachment. In retrospective study, a total 24 eyes with macula-off RRD were enrolled. All patients underwent vitrectomy to repair RRD. Outer plexiform layer (OPL), outer nuclear layer (ONL), photoreceptor layer (PR), retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) thicknesses were measured by the Spectralis (Heidelberg Engineering, Heidelberg, Germany) SD-OCT with automated segmentation software. The relationship between the thicknesses of each retinal layer and postoperative logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution scale (LogMAR) visual acuity was analyzed. OPL and RPE thicknesses were not significantly different between the retinal detachment eyes and fellow eyes (P = 0.839, 0.999, respectively). The ONL and photoreceptor thickness were significantly thinner in the retinal detachment eyes (P <0.001 and 0.001, respectively). In the univariate regression analysis, preoperative best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), ONL thickness and photoreceptor thickness showed association with the postoperative BCVA (P = 0.003, <0.001 and 0.024, respectively). In final multiple linear regression model, ONL thickness was the only variable significantly associated with postoperative BCVA (P = 0.044). Segmented ONL and photoreceptor thickness of retinal detachment eyes were significantly thinner than fellow eyes. Segmental analysis of the retinal layer in macular region may provide valuable information for evaluation RRD. And ONL thickness can be used as a potential biomarker to predict visual outcome after RRD repair.

We investigate retinal layer thickness and capillary vessel density (VD) in the patients with central serous chorioretinopathy (CSC) who recovered spontaneously and evaluate the correlation between the changes in these values and visual outcomes using swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT) and OCT angiography (OCTA). This retrospective case–control study included 34 eyes of 34 patients with spontaneously resolved acute CSC. The changes in retinal layer thickness and capillary VD were examined using SS-OCT and OCTA after complete resolution of subretinal fluid (SRF). The fellow eyes and 34 healthy eyes were used as controls. In the eyes with CSC, the outer retinal layer was significantly thinner than in the eyes of fellow and healthy controls. The foveal avascular zone area and VDs in the superficial and deep capillary plexus in the eyes with CSC were not significantly different from those in the eyes of fellow and healthy controls. The VD of the choriocapillaris in the eyes with CSC was significantly lower than that in the eyes of fellow and healthy controls. Correlation analyses revealed that the outer retinal layer thickness and initial visual acuity were positively correlated with the final visual acuity. Furthermore, the initial SRF area and height were negatively correlated with the outer retinal layer thickness after SRF resolution. Attenuation of outer retinal layer thickness and decreased VD of the choriocapillaris were observed in the eyes with spontaneously resolved acute CSC. The outer retinal layer thickness could be an important visual predictor of CSC.