Byers Eye Institute at Stanford hosts Collaborative Community on Ophthalmic Imaging conference

On September 3 and 4, the Byers Eye Institute at Stanford, as the convening center for the Collaborative Community on Ophthalmic Imaging (CCOI), co-hosted a two-day virtual conference on “The Future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Enabled Ophthalmic Imaging.” The videoconference attracted over 1,100 registrants from 39 states, 42 countries, and six continents.

To ensure that all perspectives and constituencies could be represented and heard, a broad array of participating speakers, panelists, and organizations participated in the landmark conference. This included the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Eye Institute (NEI), the National Committee on Quality Assurance (NCQA), industry representatives, patient advocacy groups, leading professional societies, and numerous academic institutions from around the world. Malvina Eydelman, MD, director of the Office of Health Technology 1, Ophthalmic, Anesthesia, Respiratory, ENT, & Dental Devices at the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) gave introductory talks on behalf of the FDA on both days of the conference.

The conference began with an initial session on foundational principles of AI-enabled algorithmic image interpretation, including important topics on training and performance objectives for systems in different use cases, standards of oversight, reimbursement, liability issues and ethical considerations. This was followed by individual sessions on applications of these issues in specific disease categories including age-related macular degeneration, retinopathy of prematurity, ocular melanoma, and a very engaging full-day session on glaucoma. This first-of-its-kind meeting helped lay the groundwork for future clinical implementations of AI for detecting, monitoring, and predicting disease in these areas of clinical need.

A number of Byers Eye Institute faculty participated in the meeting. Mark Blumenkranz, MD, MMS, HJ Smead professor emeritus of ophthalmology, and David Myung, MD, PhD, assistant professor of ophthalmology, who co-direct the Ophthalmic Innovation Program and serve on the CCOI organizing committee (pictured below), gave the opening and closing remarks, respectively, on Day 1 of the conference. Theodore Leng, MD, FACS, associate professor of ophthalmology, and, by courtesy, of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine, served on the opening panel on the foundational principles of algorithmic interpretation and ophthalmic imaging. Darius Moshfeghi, MD, professor of ophthalmology, delivered a talk on telehealth for retinopathy of prematurity and then served as a panelist on the topic of AI for newborn eye care. Prithvi Mruthyunjaya, MD, associate professor of ophthalmology, gave a presentation on choroidal nevus and melanoma, and then participated as a panelist on the topic of how AI can be used diagnose and distinguish these conditions. 

On Day 2, Jeff Goldberg, MD, PhD, Blumenkranz Smead professor and chair of ophthalmology, moderated the session and panel discussion on how to implement AI for glaucoma. Our Byers Family Ophthalmic Innovation fellow, Michael Mbagwu, MD, participated in the panel discussions on AI in glaucoma and data management. Michael Chiang, MD, the incoming NEI director, moderated the session on data standardization, curation, hosting, ownership, and use, in which Robert Chang, MD, associate professor of ophthalmology, gave a presentation on data ownership and use and also served on the panel. 

Additional details on the agenda and speakers are available on the CCOI website, and conference organizers anticipate a series of publications to follow from the presentations and discussions, as well as the ability to view recordings of the conference online in the near future.   


CCOI conference organizing committee members pictured from left to right: Mark Blumenkranz, MD; Malvina Eydelman, MD (FDA); Joel Schuman, MD (NYU), Michael Abramoff, MD, PhD (University of Iowa/Digital Diagnostics); Michael Chiang, MD (OHSU); Emily Chew, MD (National Eye Institute); Carol Shields, MD (Wills Eye Hospital); and David Myung, MD, PhD. Logos of the current member organizations of the CCOI are shown above.