Harnessing Artificial Intelligence to Transform Glaucoma Detection

Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. With the aging population and a shrinking pool of eye care providers, people often face long waits, long drives, and limited access to subspecialists. By the time many are diagnosed, their vision loss is already advanced and untreatable.

BrightFocus Foundation National Glaucoma Research grant recipient Benjamin Xu, MD, PhD, is developing innovative ways to meet this growing crisis. His research project brings together artificial intelligence (AI) and telemedicine to improve early detection of glaucoma and deliver care to underserved communities.

By moving eye care into more accessible settings and using cutting-edge AI tools, his research aims to preserve sight and reduce disparities in glaucoma outcomes. Keep reading to learn how this groundbreaking approach could transform glaucoma care.

What inspired you to investigate using AI in glaucoma care?

My inspiration stems from recognizing that current eye care models are ill-equipped to meet the growing demand for glaucoma services, particularly in underserved populations. As a practicing glaucoma specialist, I witness firsthand how delays in detection and limited access to subspecialty care leave many patients facing irreversible vision loss.

Each week, I see patients who have driven hours to reach a specialist, only to learn that their glaucoma is already too advanced for current treatments to help. This scenario highlights the urgent need for earlier, more accurate detection, especially for elderly and minority patients who face the greatest barriers to care.

At the same time, my combined roles as clinician-scientist, data scientist, biomedical engineer, and epidemiologist place me in a unique position to harness emerging technologies and address critical clinical needs. These experiences motivated me to investigate artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool to assist with complex data analysis, enhance diagnostic accuracy, and expand the reach of glaucoma care worldwide.

Why is this work important to you, and what difference could it make for people with glaucoma?

This work is deeply important to me because glaucoma is a treatable disease, and blindness is often preventable with early detection. Glaucoma also disproportionately affects disadvantaged populations who face significant barriers to care. Each week, I see how delays in diagnosis and treatment lead patients to present with advanced, irreversible vision loss. My goal is to change this trajectory by developing solutions that combine AI and telemedicine to enable earlier and more accurate detection, reduce disparities in long-term outcomes, and preserve sight for vulnerable patients. The impact of timely detection is profound—it can mean the difference between maintaining independence or enduring a lifetime of vision-related disability.

How does this project advance our ability to understand, detect, or treat glaucoma?

This project advances glaucoma care on multiple fronts. Scientifically, it evaluates AI not just in controlled laboratory conditions but within real-world health system workflows, addressing practical issues of scalability, fairness, and integration into routine clinical care. It also introduces multimodal AI approaches that combine imaging, clinical, and demographic data to improve detection of urgent glaucoma, moving beyond single-test diagnostics and focusing on those at greatest risk of vision loss. Collectively, these innovations provide new methods to improve accuracy of early detection, understand diagnostic processes, and enable more efficient allocation of healthcare resources

What do you hope this research project will lead to? What do you imagine the next step being?

I hope this research will show that AI can transform glaucoma care by enabling earlier and more accurate detection for patients at the highest risk of permanent blindness. By combining AI with telemedicine, we aim to connect these patients to treatment sooner, preserving their sight, independence, and quality of life. The next step is to expand these tools beyond our local health system to reach rural, underserved, and global communities. We also plan to evaluate long-term outcomes—such as time to treatment, vision preservation, and quality of life—to demonstrate the tangible benefits of earlier detection. Ultimately, this work can lay the foundation for a flexible model of care that evolves as new data emerge and serves as a blueprint for high-quality, equitable glaucoma care worldwide.

How will the funding from National Glaucoma Research, a BrightFocus Foundation program, advance your research or open new doors that wouldn’t be possible without donor support?

Funding from the National Glaucoma Research program makes it possible to take bold steps that traditional funding mechanisms are sometimes reluctant to support. It allows us to launch pilot projects that test innovative approaches—such as integrating AI and telemedicine for earlier glaucoma detection—within real-world health systems. These early studies generate the essential data needed to demonstrate feasibility and impact, paving the way for larger-scale projects and federal funding opportunities. By providing this opportunity, the BrightFocus Foundation and its donors help bridge the gap between promising ideas and widespread implementation. This support accelerates the development of new models of care that can preserve vision, reduce disparities, and ultimately improve glaucoma outcomes worldwide.

A Message from Dr. Xu