The White Eye Detector is a free app that uses machine learning to look for "white eye" reflections (called leukocoria) that could hint at cataract, retinoblastoma, and other diseases.

While the app, which is now available on Android and iOS, can be used by anyone regardless of age, it can especially help children who may not be able to communicate that they experience vision issues.

The White Eye Detector has already been tested on more than 50,000 photos donated by parents of 40 children, 20 of whom have been previously diagnosed with eye diseases. According to the study published in Science Advances on Wednesday, Oct. 2, the app was able to correctly identify white eye in 30 percent of the photos where the abnormal reflection was present.

In about 80 percent of the cases, the app spotted unusual eye color in photos taken an average of 1.3 years before the child was diagnosed with a disorder.

“Parents seeing white eye should get it checked out,” says Ashwin Reddy, a retinoblastoma consultant at the Royal London Hospital in the UK. But he worries that such apps could lead to a lot of people coming for check-ups.

A team of researchers from Baylor University, with assistance from staff at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has developed and tested the smartphone app that is able to detect "white eye" in children by analyzing stored photographs. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes how the app was developed and tested, and how well it works.

Most everyone has seen pictures of people seemingly possessed by the devil because their pupils glow red—this is caused by light bouncing off their retinas. However, such pictures sometimes produce white instead of red retinas. Sometimes it can happen due to ambient lighting conditions, but other times, it can indicate an eye ailment. Such problems can include retinoblastoma, a type of eye cancer, retinopathy, or even cataracts.

The researchers report that the app found 16 of the 20 children with an eye disease. Perhaps even more importantly, it detected problems in the eyes of the children when they were younger—more than a year before diagnosis. They note also that the app (called White Eye Detector) is free, allowing parents to download and use it whenever they wish.

Shaw said. “We wanted to be able to detect all hues and intensities of leukocoria. As a parent of a child with retinoblastoma, I am especially interested in detecting the traces of leukocoria that appear as a ‘gray’ pupil and are difficult to detect with the naked eye.”

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