ConnectING 13

HOW TO SAVE THE SIGHT OF
MILLIONS OF PEOPLE?
Glaucoma is a chronic eye disease that leads to irreparable damage of the visual field. It affects
more than 60 million people worldwide. Only an early diagnosis can prevent blindness. However,
this requires expensive and non-transportable equipment, which means that a large part of the
population in developing countries is deprived of this aid. Esmael Kedir, PhD student at the
e-Media Research Lab of Group T Leuven Campus, has developed an affordable and mobile
solution. At the annual conference of the European Association for Visual and Eye Research,
he won the Best Paper Award in the Glaucoma Category.
Esmael comes from Oromia, a region in Western Ethiopia.
He went to school there and then studied Computer
Science at Haramaya University (BSc) and Addis Ababa
University (MSc). After graduation, Esmael became lecturer at
Jimma University, a partner university of KU Leuven. The
collaboration between the two universities brought Esmael to
Leuven in 2016, first as a predoc, then as PhD student at Group
T Leuven Campus.
“As a miracle there was a project that was, as it were, written for
me”, Esmael explains. “As you know, the e-Media Research Lab
is specialised in human centred systems that can be applied in
various areas such as health care, learning, arts and entertainment.
Shortly before my arrival, a proposal had been received from the
Ophthalmology Department of the Leuven University Hospitals
to develop a visual screening tool for the detection of a malignant
eye disease: glaucoma. Not only did this offer fit in perfectly with
the activities of the lab, it also enabled me to contribute to a
better health care in my home country”.
Silent thief
What exactly is Glaucoma? Esmael describes it as follows:
“Glaucoma is caused when pressure builds up inside the eye,
damaging the optic nerve that connects the eye to the brain. If
it is not treated in time, it may cause irreversible blindness. It is
thought that 4.5 million people across the globe are blind
because of glaucoma, making it the third highest cause of
blindness worldwide. The condition is difficult to diagnose
because symptoms do not appear straight away. Instead, they
develop slowly over many years. That is why glaucoma is called
‘the silent thief of sight’. This means that many patients only seek
treatment when they notice they are losing their sight, when
significant damage has already occurred. Prevention through
early detection is the only effective remedy for the time being”.
“That’s exactly where the problem lies”, Esmael continues. “In
many countries, the detection equipment is not available to the
inhabitants of poor rural areas. This gave us the idea to come up
with an affordable and mobile solution. After a thorough study of
the devices in the University Hospitals in Leuven, we decided to
develop an Android app for a smartphone that can function as
an alternative Glaucoma Easy Screener (GES)”.
Virtual Reality
Esmael’s tool consists of a virtual reality head set, a smartphone
and a gaming joystick. “The smartphone sends light signals that
vary in size and intensity to the headset. The test subject uses
the joystick to indicate if he/she has observed something in the
visual field. If it turns out that certain signals are systematically
not or incorrect responded to, the local nurse knows that
something is wrong. What is more, the tool allows him/her to
determine where in the visual field the problem arises. The nurse
can then refer the person in question to the hospital for the
treatment of the disease in the making.”
For his research, Ismael works closely with the Ophthalmology
Department of the University Hospitals in Leuven and the Medical
Centre of Jimma University in Ethiopia. Several versions of his
application have been tested and validated in Leuven. In addition
to the clinical validation, usability tests have been carried out at
Jimma University. The results are promising. In terms of specificity
and sensitivity, Esmael’s tool easily achieves 85 to 90% of what
the professional equipment in university hospitals can do”.
Affordable technology
Other critical success factors of Esmael’s tool are its userfriendliness
and cost. “A complete test run on site takes about
10 minutes: 2.5 minutes for the test itself and the rest for
explanation. The cost of the complete set, including the
smartphone, is 200 euro, which is only a fraction of the price of
the specialized equipment in hospitals”.
Esmael is convinced that he has developed an affordable, accessible
and effective testing platform that can significantly improve the
quality of life and prospects of countless potential eye patients in
Ethiopia and elsewhere in the world. “Even if the silent thief of sight
is still sneaking around in the poor rural areas, he will soon be faced
with an unexpected strong resistance”, Esmael concludes.
Yves Persoons
CONNECTING
33