AI aids analysis of meibomian gland morphology
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Key takeaways:
- Upper lid glands were longer and more tortuous than lower lid glands.
- Lower lid glands were wider and had greater contrast than upper lid glands.
INDIANAPOLIS — The use of AI may help clinicians quantify and assess meibomian gland morphology among patients with dry eye disease, according to a study presented at Academy 2024.
“By harnessing the power of artificial intelligence, this is going to allow us to really analyze meibography images more efficiently, more accurately and more precisely, as well as reduce user variability,” Andrea “Dre” FazioLiu, OD, FAAO, a postdoctoral clinical research fellow at Herbert Wertheim School of Optometry & Vision Science, said. “With this, we will be able to provide more applicable metrics for clinicians to be able to follow any sort of changes in their patients’ meibomian gland dysfunction.”
In a prospective, cross-sectional study of 84 patients with moderate to severe dry eye (mean age, 32 years), FazioLiu and colleagues captured 336 meibography images of the upper and lower eyelids using the Oculus Keratograph 5M. The researchers inputted the images to a custom AI model to quantify meibomian gland morphology and assess differences in length, width, contrast and tortuosity.
According to FazioLiu, upper lid glands were 30% to 40% longer and about 40% more tortuous than lower lid glands, while lower lid glands were on average about 18% to 26% wider than upper lid glands, with a 34% to 38% higher contrast.
Although there were no significant differences in gland length, width and density between the right and left lower lids, the right upper lids were 7% longer, 5.5% wider and 10.5% higher in density compared with the left upper lids. These findings were statistically significant, Liu noted, but not likely to be clinically significant or impact function.
“If we take a really close look at these numbers, these values are really small,” Liu said. “At this point, we’re chalking up these differences to the fact that you are likely to have small anatomical differences that occur naturally.”
Editor’s note: This article was updated on Dec. 3, 2024, to correct Andrea “Dre” FazioLiu, OD, FAAO’s, name. Healio regrets the error.
Collapse
Liu A, et al. Upper-lower eyelid differences in meibomian gland morphological characteristics. Presented at: Academy 2024; Nov. 6-9; Indianapolis.
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts