Retinal ‘Age’ Scan Shows Promise as Low-Cost Osteoporosis Screening Tool
A new study published in PLOS Digital Health suggests that a simple, non-invasive retinal scan could help identify individuals at risk for osteoporosis.
The research details an AI-derived score called RetiAGE, which estimates the biological age of the retina. The model was trained on a vast dataset of 129,236 retinal images and then tested on two large cohorts: the Singaporean PIONEER group (n=1,965) and the UK Biobank (n=43,938).
Key Findings:
- An inverse relationship was observed: Higher retinal age was significantly linked to lower bone mineral density.
- Predictive power: For every standard deviation increase in retinal age, the risk of developing osteoporosis over a mean follow-up of 12.2 years rose by 12% (hazard ratio 1.12).
- Improved screening: Adding the RetiAGE score to the standard Osteoporosis Self-assessment Tool substantially improved its predictive accuracy, boosting the C-index from 0.585 to 0.635.
"Retinal imaging could serve as a low-cost, non-invasive opportunistic screening tool for osteoporosis," the authors suggest.
However, they also caution that the model may require calibration for different populations and clinical workflows before widespread implementation.