Meet the speaker: Dr Foo Li Lian

The SILMO Academy by IOA will be taking place 12 April – 14 April in Singapore. Dr Foo Li Lian will be talking about using AI to monitor and predict myopia progression.

Our study aims to identify children at risk of developing high myopia for timely assessment and intervention, preventing myopia progression and complications in adulthood through the development of a deep learning system (DLS). Using a school-based cohort in Singapore comprising of 998 children (aged 6-12 years old), we trained and performed primary validation of the DLS using 7456 baseline fundus images of 1878 eyes and external validation using an independent test dataset with 821 baseline fundus images of 189 eyes together with clinical data (age, gender, race, parental myopia and baseline spherical equivalent (SE)). We derived three distinct algorithms – image, clinical and mix (image + clinical) models to predict high myopia development (SE ≤ -6.00 dioptre) during teenage years (5 years later, age 11-17). Model performance was evaluated using area under the receiver operating curve (AUC). Our image models (Primary dataset AUC 0.93-0.95; Test dataset 0.91-0.93), clinical models (Primary dataset AUC 0.90-0.97; Test dataset 0.93-0.94) and mix (image + clinical) models (Primary dataset AUC 0.97; Test dataset 0.97-0.98) achieve clinically acceptable performance. The addition of 1 year SE progression variable had minimal impact on the DLS performance (clinical model AUC 0.98 versus 0.97 in primary dataset, 0.97 versus 0.94 in test dataset; mixed model AUC 0.99 versus 0.97 in primary dataset, 0.95 versus 0.98 in test dataset). Our DLS allows prediction of the development of high myopia by teenage years amongst school-going children. This has potential utility as a clinical-decision support tool to identify “at-risk” children for early intervention.

Dr Foo Li Lian is a consultant ophthalmologist with the Myopia Service and Refractive Department, subspecializing in the field of myopia focusing on childhood myopia control as well as refractive and cataract surgeries at Singapore National Eye Centre and Myopia Centre of Excellence Singapore. She is the first Ophthalmologist who has completed the Myopia fellowship in Singapore National Eye Centre and in the whole of Singapore. She also holds an academic position of Clinical Assistant Professor at DUKE-NUS Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Myopia Program Lead of the Singapore National Eye Centre Fellowship Coordination Committee and Physician Faculty Member of Singhealth Ophthalmology Residency Program.

Dr Foo is also actively involved in research, having published in various major renowned scientific journals in Ophthalmology and myopia. In addition, she has been an invited speaker to multiple international conferences and has co-authored 3 books: A Practical Guide to VIVA and OSCE in Ophthalmology Examinations, Fundamental OSCE Guide in Ophthalmology and Pharmacotherapies for Myopia and Ocular Refractive Errors.

Empowered by her engineering and medical background, Dr Foo aspires to be an outstanding clinician innovator. She seeks to improve medical care through clinical innovations that bridge bench to bedside gap. She has participated in the distinguished MIT-Harvard Medical School Healthcare Innovation Bootcamp, in which she won runner-up in the Elevator Pitch segment. Moreover, she has also completed the highly competitive Eureka-Singapore Monsoon School on Translational Medicine. Dr Foo believes in synergizing evidence-based medicine and impactful translational research. Through the skills that she has developed, she aims to create the next generation of treatment modalities that can halt the relentless march of myopia.

Find out more about SILMO Academy by IOA here.