From the middle of this year, four polyclinics will screen their patients for conditions such as heart disease – by snapping a photograph of one of their eyes.

Clementi, Outram and Bukir Merah polyclinics, and a fourth one to be decided later, will do so in a study to determine if such screenings can help identify more people with diseases that standard screening tests do not detect.

The images of the eye will be analysed by a computer system for diabetic retinopathy, where the retina is damaged by diabetes; glaucoma, which damages optic nerves; and heart disease.

This will be done by the new Singapore advanced Imaging Laboratory for Ocular Research (Sailor) – set up by the Singapore Eye Research Institute (Seri) and Agency for Science, Technology and Research’s (A*Star) Institute for Infocomm Research – that was launched yesterday.

In recent years, studies have indicated that changes in the eye reflect changes in the body, said Professor Wong Tien Yin, Sailor’s co-director and Seri’s director, who mooted the idea.

For example, having abnormal eye vessels could be an indication of damaged heart vessels.

Traditional methods of testing for diabetes and cholesterol levels, such as blood tests, miss about half of those with cardiovascular diseases, he said.

He said that it would be an achievement if the eye screenings could identify even a small number of those whose conditions were undetected.

This screening will only complement and not replace current screening tests, which are still useful, he added.

Sailor houses a system that stores, processes and analyses eye imaging data, and is run by about 20 clinicians and biomedical scientists from A*Star and Seri.

The study will end early next year. Sailor will look into implementing the screening if it proves to be cost-effective and beneficial, but that is “a long way away,” Prof Wong said.