AI imaging company VisionQuest Biomedical Inc reported on Wednesday the receipt of the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) 510(k) clearance to market the Image Quality Analyzer (IQA) software that reduces unreadable images captured in teleretinal screening programmes by retinal photographers for use in both tabletop and portable retinal cameras.

The company said the IQA is a software system intended for use in importing, displaying, analyzing and managing images acquired with digital fundus cameras. The patented software detects the most common causes of retinal imaging artifacts: bright crescents, blurriness, and poor illumination. The software then prompts the user to retake the image and provides clues for improving the image quality.

IQA is used by nurses and medical technicians to ensure that the images they capture to screen for diabetic retinopathy, the most common cause of blindness in the working age population, are of sufficient quality for interpretation by a human reader or by artificial intelligence programs. About 98% of the cases imaged at Clinicas del Azucar can be read without the need for pupil dilation, added the company.

In conjunction, the company's IQA was developed through funding from the National Eye Institute (NEI), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).