Telemedicine in Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD)

AMD affects 15 million Americans, with 200,000 new advanced cases diagnosed each year. AMD is the leading cause of blindness in this country, from either the “dry” or “wet” advanced forms. At present, there is no treatment for dry AMD. Besides blindness, AMD has other indirect complications such as depression, social dependency, and the risk of fall and injury. The prevalence of this disease is expected to grow substantially as life expectancy continues to increase and record numbers of Baby Boomers enter their senior years. The total direct cost of AMD is $220 billion per year and is expected to increase ~1.5 fold.  The Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) showed that specific vitamin supplementation protocols can reduce the risk of progression from intermediate to late AMD by ~25% which in turn could lower the cost of AMD 17.6% if fully implemented. To accomplish this, it is crucial to perform large scale population screening to identify the individuals with early- or intermediate-stage of AMD and better predict those at risk of developing late AMD, but such a system is currently not available. Although articles have been published on automatic AMD pathology detection, none of these systems are available for screening due to lack of validation and commercial readiness. Considering this urgent need, we aim to develop an automated tool for AMD screening and prediction, and make it widely available in both urban and remote/rural areas and for large-scale screening through a telemedicine platform, and thereby prevent blindness. To establish the feasibility of our proposed telemedicine solution, patients are invited to participate in this study by having non-dilated photos of their eyes taken by an FDA approved camera at their own doctor’s office. The photos will then be transmitted securely and analyzed by computer (telemedicine) for presence of absence of AMD.  If sufficient accuracy by the automatic system can be established compared to expert human diagnosis, a larger scale study will be carried out.

Inclusion Criteria:

- Subjects with AMD will be recruited if willing and able to comply with clinic visit and study-related procedures, and provide signed informed consent

Exclusion Criteria: 

- Other retinal degenerations and retinal vascular diseases such as diabetic retinopathy or macular edema, prior retinal surgery.

Conditions:
• Age Related macular Degeneration (AMD)