The EyeCatcher glaucoma home monitoring system

Researchers from City, University of London have reported strong adherence and high accuracy for their home glaucoma monitoring test, adding to a growing body of evidence suggesting the future of glaucoma routine sight assessment may lie in home-monitoring.   

“This is tremendously exciting news. Effective home-monitoring would be a win-win-win for patients, clinicians and the taxpayer alike, and it looks like the technology finally exists to make it a reality,” said lead author Dr Pete Jones, an optometry and visual sciences division lecturer at City. “This news is particularly timely, since home-monitoring is just one of the ways we can help make the NHS more resilient and sustainable, post-Covid.”  

City researchers enrolled 20 NHS glaucoma patients from across England and Wales who were provided with a prototype, tablet-based eye test for six months. Using the device, called Eyecatcher, they were asked to run the home glaucoma eye test themselves, testing each of their eyes once a month. 

Similar to conventional eye tests for glaucoma, patients looked at a central cross presented on the device and were asked to press a button when they saw a flash of light, which appeared at different locations and was of variable intensity. The computer’s front-facing camera also recorded them during the test, and artificial intelligence (AI) was used to perform facial recognition and head/eye-tracking, to ensure people performed the test correctly. 

The data from the home-monitoring tests showed strong agreement with the gold standard clinical assessments, performed at both the start and end of the study, demonstrating high accuracy. The study also achieved high adherence, with 98% of the home tests completed successfully.  

When combined with current clinical data, home-monitoring data was also shown to reduce measurement error by over 50% in 90% of eyes, potentially allowing cases of rapid sight loss to be detected months or even years earlier, said researchers. 

Future studies will need to examine whether home-monitoring is sustainable over longer periods and is capable of detecting rapidly progressing cases of glaucoma, said Dr Jones. A follow-up study presenting the patients’ views and opinions on home-monitoring is underway.  

The study was published by the American Journal of Ophthalmology.