Week in review: Detection of malarial retinopathy, RVO after COVID-19 vaccination, ChatGPT and test prep

A weekly roundup of ophthalmic news from around the web.

A side use for fundus and OCT images: detecting malarial retinopathy. Cerebral malaria (CM) can cause a singular type of retinopathy, with clinical presentations that include papilledema and retinal whitening and hemorrhage. A systematic review of 35 articles related to retinal imaging in cerebral malaria found that the use of imaging techniques, such as OCT, to spot CM and its associated retinopathy is especially helpful in low- and middle-income regions where there are few ophthalmologists, as non-ophthalmologists can be trained to read and interpret these images. The authors note that the image findings can also be used to guide treatment. Malaria Journal

Risk of new-onset RVO following COVID-19 vaccination is rare. Using electronic health record data from the COVID-19 Research Network, a multinational health research network encompassing information from more than 103 million patients, researchers assessed the incidence and risk of new-onset retinal vein occlusion (RVO) within 21 days of administration of the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. The new-onset RVO incidence rate was 0.003%, or 3.4 per 100,000. The relative risk of developing new-onset RVO was not significantly different from that seen after influenza or tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (Tdap) vaccinations. JAMA Ophthalmology

Thinking of using ChatGPT to help you study for the ophthalmology boards? You may want to reconsider, because an assessment of ChatGPT’s performance on practice questions for the Written Qualifying Exam (WQE) and the Ophthalmic Knowledge Assessment Program (OKAP) found that it answered only 46% of the questions correctly, with no correct responses to the retina/vitreous questions. After a reworking of the algorithm and with no multiple-choice options given, ChatGPT improved to 58% accuracy, but the authors conclude that this rate is not high enough for ChatGPT to assist in board certification test preparation. JAMA Ophthalmology