Development and validation of a deep learning model for diagnosing neuropathic corneal pain via in vivo confocal microscopy.

Journal: NPJ digital medicine
Published Date: May 14, 2025

Abstract

Neuropathic corneal pain (NCP) is an underdiagnosed ocular disorder caused by aberrant nociception and hypersensitivity of corneal nerves, often resulting in chronic pain and discomfort even in the absence of noxious stimuli. Recently, microneuromas (aberrant growth and swelling of the corneal nerve endings) detected using in vivo confocal microscopy (IVCM) have emerged as a promising biomarker for NCP. However, this process is time-intensive and error-prone, limiting its clinical use and availability. In this work, we present a new NCP screening system based on a deep learning model trained to detect microneuromas using a multisite dataset with a combined total of 103,168 IVCM images. Our model showed excellent discriminative ability detecting microneuromas (AuROC: 0.97) and the ability to generalize to data from a new institution (AuROC: 0.90). Additionally, our pipeline provides an uncertainty quantification mechanism that allows it to communicate when its predictions are reliable, further increasing its clinical relevance.

Authors

  • Neslihan Dilruba Koseoglu
    Center for Translational Ocular Immunology and Cornea Service, New England Eye Center, Department of Ophthalmology, Tufts Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.
  • Eric Chen
  • Rudraksh Tuwani
    Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
  • Benjamin Kompa
  • Stephanie M Cox
    Center for Translational Ocular Immunology and Cornea Service, New England Eye Center, Department of Ophthalmology, Tufts Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.
  • M Cuneyt Ozmen
    Center for Translational Ocular Immunology and Cornea Service, New England Eye Center, Department of Ophthalmology, Tufts Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.
  • Mina Massaro-Giordano
    Scheie Eye Institute, Department of Ophthalmology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
  • Andrew L Beam
    Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
  • Pedram Hamrah
    Center for Translational Ocular Immunology and Cornea Service, New England Eye Center, Department of Ophthalmology, Tufts Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA. pedram.hamrah@tufts.edu.

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