‘Vampire’ software could aid disease diagnosis

The imaging software, which scans blood vessels in the retina, has been designed to assess the vessels’ health and help scientists spot the early signs of heart disease, diabetes and dementia.

Changes to the retina are often a sign of sickness elsewhere in the body. The software, known as Vampire, allows scientists to analyse the shape of blood vessels in thousands of images at a time and can identify known indicators of disease.

The Vampire software – Vessel Assessment and Measurement Platform for Images of the REtina – could save a significant amount of time by largely automating the process of looking for retinal abnormalities in large data sets.

The team at The University of Edinburgh was the first to use a software tool to analyse the retinal scans, collected by UK Biobank, of over 2,500 people. Vampire proved to be effective at analysing the images, though a longer trial is required to determine if it is the best way of utilising Biobank’s 80,000-strong retinal dataset.

Dr Tom MacGillivray, who led the study by The University of Edinburgh’s Clinical Research Imaging Centre, said: “This is the first step towards analysing all the retinal images held in the UK Biobank and to contribute valuable information about the health and condition of small blood vessels. Our work will hopefully accelerate research into the causes and treatments of chronic illnesses that affect millions of people in the UK.”

Professor Emanuele Trucco, of The University of Dundee’s School of Computing, said: “The ultimate aim is to develop a practical software tool supporting efficient and accurate measurement and analysis of large collections of retinal images. The potential for research and clinical impact is huge."