Eye commentary suggests UK “uniquely placed” to bring oculomics from code to clinic

A new commentary published in Eye has outlined the factors that will be important for the potential of oculomics to be fully realised within the NHS.

“This commentary suggests that the UK is uniquely placed to translate oculomics from retrospective association to clinically useful prediction, but success will depend less on algorithmic novelty than on governance, prospective validation, implementation and multidisciplinary, cross-sector collaboration to define its place within clinical pathways,” the authors highlighted.

The report is authored by Professor Pearse Keane, Siegfried Wagner and Alexander Heatley. Keane is the director of Insight – “the world’s largest ophthalmic bio-resource” with more than 30 million images linked to clinical data.

The authors outline the factors that make the UK well-suited to translating oculomics from proof-of-concept to implementation, including a tax-funded national health service with longitudinal records and ophthalmic imaging delivered at population scale.

They add that the UK also has decades of experience delivering screening programmes and a primary care optometry network that delivers a substantial proportion of eye care.

“Comparable ophthalmic cohorts exist internationally, but the UK’s combination of universal coverage and governed access to linked outcomes remains rare,” the authors observed.

Reflecting on the importance of optometrists and ophthalmologists influencing the future of oculomics, the authors emphasised: “Ophthalmologists and optometrists should shape this field, not wait to evaluate tools built elsewhere on datasets that may not reflect NHS populations or pathways.”

The scientists observe that oculomics is often framed as using the eye as a window to the body.

“The more consequential question for the UK is whether we can build the architecture around that window, the governance, datasets, workforce and clinical pathways that turn imaging signals into decisions clinicians can act on and patients can trust,” they shared.