Sydney, Australian researchers have developed a new automated non-invasive technique for diagnosing eye surface cancer, offering the potential to reduce the need for biopsies, prevent therapy delays and make treatment far more effective for patients.
Eye surface cancer, also known as ocular surface squamous neoplasia or OSSN, is a common malignancy of the cornea and conjunctiva parts of the eye.
The novel technique involves custom-building of an advanced imaging microscope linked with computing and Artificial Intelligence (AI) operations, Xinhua news agency reported.
It results in an automated system that is “able to successfully identify between diseased and non-diseased eye tissue, in real-time, through a simple scanning process”.
“Clinical symptoms of OSSN are known to be variable and in early stages can be extremely hard to detect, so patients may experience delays in treatment or be inaccurately diagnosed,” said lead scientist Abbas Habibalahi at the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics.
Early detection of the condition is critical as it “supports simple and more curative treatments such as topical therapies whereas advanced lesions may require eye surgery or even removal of the eye, and also has the risk of mortality,” he said.
