At this year’s Annual Scientific Meeting hosted by the Hong Kong Ophthalmological Society and the Hong Kong College of Ophthalmology, our department held a symposium discussing the application of artificial intelligence in diagnosing retinal conditions.

We were honoured and privileged to have two international speakers renowned in this field to join our session. Prof Neil Bressler, the James P. Gills Professor of Ophthalmology at Wilmer Eye Institute and past chair of the NIH-sponsored Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research Network, spoke on the “Controversies in AI”. Dr Bressler highlighted the need for regulation in AI including the difficulty of protecting private health information (PHI) when sharing data in this field of research.

We then heard a presentation from Prof SriniVas R. Sadda, the Chief Scientific Officer of the Doheny Eye Institute and Endowed Chair, and Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA), entitled “The Evolution of Screening for Diabetic Retinopathy: How AI is Transforming the Paradigm”. This was an update on the latest developments in screening for diabetic retinopathy using AI technology.

Finally, our very own department’s faculty assistant professor, Dr Carol Cheung, spoke on her research on using an AI-based OCT Image analysis for diabetic macular edema screening. Dr Cheung is also a world renowned expert in the field of advanced retinal imaging with over 180 peer reviewed publications on this and related fields of study.

Prof Neil Bressler kindly joined us live from Baltimore for the session and was able to answer questions from the audience during our live Q&A. The symposium was enjoyed by around 200 ophthalmologists who registered for the session. Although the symposium was held in virtual format this year, due to the covid-19 pandemic, the session was a great success and was an extremely informative update on this exciting field of eye research.

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