Addenbrooke's Hospital eye specialist Dr Nikhil Jain, and former student, Dr Arun Thirunavukarasu, have developed a new high-tech tool that could change the way glaucoma patients are treated worldwide.

Based at the hospital's Cambridge Eye Research Centre the ophthalmologists have come up with a web-based solution, which they have just presented to the first ever Cambridge Eye Research Centre Symposium. 

More than 40 guests heard they have created the Glaucoma Field Defect Classifier (GFDC), an application which exhibits perfect accuracy in classifying mild, moderate, and severe glaucomatous field defects.

The app, developed with a multi-disciplinary team, is now freely hosted online for clinicians and researchers to use with glaucoma patients.

The breakthrough is regarded as so important they have already presented it at three other international conferences this year and featured in Digital Medicine, an international, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publishing the highest quality research.

Cambridge Eye Research Centre director and consultant ophthalmic surgeon and glaucoma specialist, Professor Rupert Bourne, is proud of the pair, commenting: ‘In the UK, we under-report vision impairment, which can deny some patients the services they need.

‘Arun and Nik presented their work at a global eye research conference in Seattle to wide acclaim, and Arun won the National Foundation Doctors' Presentation Day prize, and both will be taking this work to the Royal College of Ophthalmologists Annual Congress.

‘It is an excellent example of very high quality international research by our trainees, which has a direct patient benefit.'

The breakthrough is just the latest in a series at Addenbrooke's that could alter eye treatment worldwide. A pioneering cataract test called Neocam and invented by Addenbrooke's consultant 

Dr Louise Allen is the subject of a national study, with the aim of testing 140,000 newborn babies by August 2025.

Addenbrooke's is run by Cambridge University Hospitals Trust.

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