What is ROP?
India has one of the world's highest rates of premature births, with more than 3 million premature births per year. ROP is a condition that affects premature babies. “25-40 percent of these babies are at risk of developing ROP,” says Dr. Anand Vinekar, head of pediatric retina at the Narayana Nethralaya Eye Institute in Bangalore, who founded KIDROP, a program aimed at addressing the problem of ROP in rural India.
How KIDROP is using AI to overcome infantile blindness
Current methods make this nearly impossible, with many Indian families located far from hospitals and a severe shortage of qualified doctors. But KIDROP, CleaVision, and SAP are using AI to fill this gap, providing a lifeline to newborns like Hanbis C.
Hambis C.'s parents, like many new parents in India, were anxious. “My father was blind,” his mother said, expressing fears based on personal experience. Their decision to seek help was a life-changing one. They feared that their newborn child might inherit their blindness.
Hambis C's father recounts his fortunate experience with the KIDROP team at a nearby hospital. As a result of this important outreach effort that brought advanced medical testing to rural villages in India, Hambis C was found to have symptoms of ROP. However, after receiving effective follow-up treatment in Bangalore, his experience changed from despair to hope.
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The KIDROP program aims to bring life-changing diagnostic capabilities to impoverished communities by teaching non-physicians how to use field imaging cameras to take digital pictures of babies' eyes. But there are additional challenges as thousands of retinal scans are produced, all of which need to be screened for symptoms of ROP. Dr. Vinekar explains the bottleneck in the diagnosis and treatment process: “We have a lot of images, but no one to read them.”
How SAP Business AI technology powers CleaVision's ROP detection solution
This is where SAP Business AI technologies, including SAP Analytics Cloud solutions and the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), support CleaVision's solution and make a big difference. When eye images are uploaded to CleaVision, retinal and vascular features are automatically recognized to indicate the presence or absence of ROP in premature babies. The system enables doctors to quickly identify and prioritize children at risk.
“We make all the decisions and manage them,” said Dr. Vineker. [the AI] “But it does help prioritize those images. This shows a systematic strategy for leveraging technology while preserving the importance of human judgment in important medical decisions.”
SAP and CleaVision's AI will not only benefit technology and medicine, but also have a profound, life-changing impact on individuals. Hanvith C.'s parents emphasize the value of awareness and early intervention, and hope that this technology will help other families.
