Seven Common Causes of Blindness-Causing Corneal Diseases
Conditions
Interventions
Gold Standard:Infectious keratitis is diagnosed using pathogen examination as the gold standard, combined with the comprehensive clinical diagnosis based on typical symptoms and signs assessed by expe
Index test:A deep learning-based auxiliary diagnostic algorithm for blinding corneal diseases
Sponsors
Eye Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Inclusion criteria
Inclusion criteria: 1. Infectious keratitis (meeting any of the following diagnostic criteria): (1) Bacterial keratitis: Positive corneal scrapings smear or culture, or clinical manifestations consistent with bacterial keratitis characteristics (acute onset, severe pain, relatively well-defined stromal infiltrate, significant anterior chamber reaction, etc.), as comprehensively determined by a corneal specialist; (2) Fungal keratitis: Filaments/spores observed in scrapings smears or positive culture, or typical slit-lamp signs such as feathered infiltrates, satellite lesions, immune ring, etc., as determined by a specialist; (3) Acanthamoeba keratitis: Typical Acanthamoeba cysts/trophozoites found by confocal microscopy, or positive corneal scrapings or culture; (4) Viral keratitis (HSV/VZV): HSV: Typical dendritic/map-like epithelial defects or stromal keratitis, combined with PCR results if necessary; VZV: Corneal involvement in combination with a history of facial/eyelid herpes; 2. Non-infectious keratitis: (1) Immune-related keratitis (such as Mooren’s ulcer, marginal keratitis, etc.), diagnosed comprehensively by a corneal specialist based on clinical manifestations and systemic conditions, excluding evidence of infection; exposure keratitis, neurotrophic/paralytic keratitis, filamentary keratitis, etc.; (2) Non-infectious keratitis following chemical/thermal burns (with secondary infection clearly excluded); 3. Corneal dystrophy: Epithelial or stromal dystrophy with typical family history or bilateral symmetrical clinical manifestations, with slit-lamp diffuse illumination clearly showing the lesion; 4. Corneal degeneration: Primary cases of degenerative corneal diseases with typical slit-lamp features, such as Terrien’s marginal degeneration. Other general conditions: Complete slit-lamp photograph images of the initial visit are obtainable, and the image quality meets the analysis requirements; clinical history records are relatively complete, allowing extraction of core consultation information.
Exclusion criteria
Exclusion criteria: 1. Corneal lesions with unknown causes or insufficient clinical information to make a clear diagnosis; 2. Confirmed mixed infections (e.g., fungal and bacterial) where it is difficult to distinguish the primary cause; 3. History of significant ocular surface surgery causing notable local anatomical changes (such as penetrating keratoplasty, extensive conjunctival flap coverage, or scarring after amniotic membrane transplantation that makes the lesion unassessable); 4. Corneal perforation, prolapse of intraocular contents, or secondary endophthalmitis at the time of visit; 5. Poor-quality slit-lamp photographs (evident out-of-focus, severe exposure issues, eyelid obstructing the main lesion) affecting assessment; 6. Missing key medical history information making it impossible to construct a structured history questionnaire; 7. Non-initial cases (to avoid lesions that have been significantly altered by treatment, only images and medical history from the first visit are included).
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| Area Under the ROC Curve;Accuracy;Sensitivity;Specificity; | — |
Countries
China
Contacts
Public ContactWei Chen
Eye Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University
Outcome results
None listed