Deep learning versus ophthalmologists for screening for glaucoma on fundus examination: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background

In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we aimed to compare deep learning versus ophthalmologists in glaucoma diagnosis on fundus examinations. 

Method

PubMed, Cochrane, Embase, ClinicalTrials.gov and ScienceDirect databases were searched for studies reporting a comparison between the glaucoma diagnosis performance of deep learning and ophthalmologists on fundus examinations on the same datasets, until 10 December 2020. Studies had to report an area under the receiver operating characteristics (AUC) with SD or enough data to generate one. 

Results

We included six studies in our meta-analysis. There was no difference in AUC between ophthalmologists (AUC = 82.0, 95% confidence intervals [CI] 65.4–98.6) and deep learning (97.0, 89.4–104.5). There was also no difference using several pessimistic and optimistic variants of our meta-analysis: the best (82.2, 60.0–104.3) or worst (77.7, 53.1–102.3) ophthalmologists versus the best (97.1, 89.5–104.7) or worst (97.1, 88.5–105.6) deep learning of each study. We did not retrieve any factors influencing those results. 

Conclusion

Deep learning had similar performance compared to ophthalmologists in glaucoma diagnosis from fundus examinations. Further studies should evaluate deep learning in clinical situations.