Publications
The Cornea Image Analysis Reading Center has a history of over 30-years of publications
It was the reading center for the Specular Microscopy Ancillary Study (SMAS) of the Cornea Donor Study, a National Eye Institute-sponsored 10-year, 1,100-patient multicenter study examining the effect of donor age on graft survival and endothelial cell loss (Ophthalmology 115:620-26, 2008; 115:627-32, 2008; 120:2419-27, 2013; 120:2428-35, 2013).
It was also the reading center for the NEI-sponsored Cornea Preservation Time Study (CPTS), a five-year, 1,330 eyes study involving 40 clinical sites and 22 eye banks examining the effect of preservation time on graft survival and endothelial cell loss (Cornea 34:601-08, 2015; JAMA Ophthalmology 135:1394-1400, 2017; JAMA Ophthalmology 137:185-193, 2019).
It is now the reading center for the NEI-sponsored Diabetes Endothelial Keratoplasty Study (DEKS) working with 28 clinical sites and 13 eye banks examining the impact of diabetes in the cornea on graft success and endothelial cell loss following Descemet membrane endothelial keratoplasty (DMEK). Results should be coming up in the fall of 2025.
The CIARC has also extensive experience with its corporate studies testing safety and in some studies efficacy of drugs, devices, and procedures in the anterior segment. Its publications have been primarily in the MIGs space in recent years including its 2 year and 5 year findings on the endothelial cell loss changes with the CyPass microshunt device that received wide recognition in the ophthalmic community (Cornea 38:325-331, 2019; Am J Ophthalmol 208:211-18, 2019). It has also studied the iStent (Am J Ophthalmol 252:17-25, 2023) and the Hydrus Microstent (Ophthalmology 129:742-751. 2022). The control groups in this studies provide some of largest cohorts of long term endothelial cell loss with current phacoemulsification surgery.
Finally, the CIARC in conjunction with the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University is advancing machine learning image analysis applications for post keratoplasty endothelial images in the detection of graft rejection pre-clinically (Transl Vis Sci Technol.
2023;12(2):22, https://doi.org/10.1167/tvst.12.2.22) and the automated analysis of eye bank endothelial images (Transl Vis Sci Technol. In press). The CIARC is advancing other machine learning machine learning applications which are under development for anterior segment imaging.