Overview of fundus refraction offset (FRO). Credit score: Investigative Ophthalmology & Visible Science (2025). DOI: 10.1167/iovs.66.9.1
A mix of routine eye scans and AI has created a robust new method of measuring nearsightedness to raised predict folks’s long-term threat of great retinal injury, a brand new research suggests.
Utilizing the brand new technique, folks whose retinas regarded extra nearsighted than their glasses prescription indicated had been extra more likely to develop retinal detachment or tears than these with the identical prescription.
The analysis is printed within the journal Investigative Ophthalmology & Visible Science.
Specialists say the strategy affords a extra tailor-made solution to assess nearsightedness by bearing in mind refined adjustments in a person’s retina missed by glasses prescription, which might assist determine folks at greater threat of problems related to nearsightedness.
The brand new measure of nearsightedness, referred to as fundus refraction offset (FRO), might assist clinicians higher determine weak sufferers, resulting in extra tailor-made administration to stop imaginative and prescient loss, researchers add.
Multiple billion folks worldwide are nearsighted, with almost 50% of the worldwide inhabitants projected to be affected by 2050. Folks with robust nearsighted prescriptions are usually 13 instances extra more likely to have retinal detachment than folks with out nearsightedness. Nevertheless, this threat can fluctuate tremendously even amongst people with comparable prescriptions, specialists say.
Within the first research of its type, researchers from the College of Edinburgh analyzed well being information and retinal photos from greater than 9,300 UK Biobank members aged 40–69 with no earlier retinal issues.
FRO makes use of AI to check how an individual’s retina appears to be like structurally to the way it ought to usually look based on their glasses prescription.
The researchers used eye scan photos to calculate the FRO rating. They discovered that for every step decrease within the rating—that means the retina regarded extra nearsighted than anticipated—the chance of growing retinal detachment or tears over 12 years elevated by about 50%, even amongst people with comparable glasses prescription, age, intercourse, and different components at baseline.
Specialists say the FRO rating affords a brand new, extra correct solution to determine people at elevated threat of the sight-threatening situation.
The strategy might additionally assist information choices round standard elective procedures, corresponding to laser eye surgical procedure and clear lens alternate, by figuring out sufferers whose retinas could also be extra weak to sure surgical procedures, even when their glasses prescriptions are the identical.
The research’s principal investigator, Fabian Yii, from the College of Edinburgh’s Robert O Curle Ophthalmology Suite within the Institute of Regeneration and Restore, mentioned, “Our study supports moving beyond glasses prescription alone and taking into account retinal information when describing myopia severity. Given the limitations of current descriptors of myopia severity, most notably glasses prescription, in effectively capturing an individual’s risks of myopic complications, this research represents an important step in allowing care to be targeted more effectively for the increasing number of people affected by myopia.”
Extra data:
Fabian Yii et al, Fundus Refraction Offset as a Customized Biomarker for 12-Yr Threat of Retinal Detachment, Investigative Ophthalmology & Visible Science (2025). DOI: 10.1167/iovs.66.9.1
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AI measure of nearsightedness boosts eye illness prediction (2025, July 15)
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