A study by researchers from Mass Eye and Ear and the Broad Institute has revealed that retinal imaging combined with genetic analysis can predict the risk of developing eye and systemic diseases. Credit: SciTechDaily.com
The retina is said to provide a window into a person’s systemic health. In a new study published on January 24and Harvard combined retinal imaging, genetics, and big data to estimate how likely a person is to develop eye and systemic diseases in the future.
“We’ve come to realize recently that there is a lot more information that we can get from our retina images than we thought was possible,” says senior author Nazlee Zebardast, MD, MSc, director of Glaucoma Imaging at Mass Eye and Ear and an assistant professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School.
“Each layer of the retina is made up of different types of cells with diverse structures and functions, and we show that the thicknesses of these different layers are associated with different conditions,” says Zebardast, who is also an associated scientist at Broad.