Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Dr Jeffry Hogg, Dr Gregory Maniatopoulos
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ. INTRODUCTION: Neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) management is one of the largest single-disease contributors to hospital outpatient appointments. Partial automation of nAMD treatment decisions could reduce demands on clinician time. Established artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled retinal imaging analysis tools, could be applied to this use-case, but are not yet validated for it. A primary qualitative investigation of stakeholder perceptions of such an AI-enabled decision tool is also absent. This multi-methods study aims to establish the safety and efficacy of an AI-enabled decision tool for nAMD treatment decisions and understand where on the clinical pathway it could sit and what factors are likely to influence its implementation. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Single-centre retrospective imaging and clinical data will be collected from nAMD clinic visits at a National Health Service (NHS) teaching hospital ophthalmology service, including judgements of nAMD disease stability or activity made in real-world consultant-led-care. Dataset size will be set by a power calculation using the first 127 randomly sampled eligible clinic visits. An AI-enabled retinal segmentation tool and a rule-based decision tree will independently analyse imaging data to report nAMD stability or activity for each of these clinic visits. Independently, an external reading centre will receive both clinical and imaging data to generate an enhanced reference standard for each clinic visit. The non-inferiority of the relative negative predictive value of AI-enabled reports on disease activity relative to consultant-led-care judgements will then be tested. In parallel, approximately 40 semi-structured interviews will be conducted with key nAMD service stakeholders, including patients. Transcripts will be coded using a theoretical framework and thematic analysis will follow. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: NHS Research Ethics Committee and UK Health Research Authority approvals are in place (21/NW/0138). Informed consent is planned for interview participants only. Written and oral dissemination is planned to public, clinical, academic and commercial stakeholders.
Author(s): Hogg HDJ, Brittain K, Teare D, Talks J, Balaskas K, Keane P, Maniatopoulos G
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: BMJ Open
Year: 2023
Volume: 13
Issue: 2
Online publication date: 01/02/2023
Acceptance date: 16/01/2023
Date deposited: 17/02/2023
ISSN (print): 2044-6055
ISSN (electronic): 2044-6055
Publisher: BMJ Publishing Group
URL: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2022-069443
DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-069443
PubMed id: 36725098
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric
