Analysis of the person feature face might lead doctors to discover some diseases or even genetic disorders that might occur to the person during his life time. As we know that genetic disorders might take the child years to be diagnosis of that specific disease. Even when a doctor suspects a specific disorder, such as Noonan syndrome, a developmental disorder that can affect the skeletal system, heart, eyes, language, and speech, but usually not intelligence, testing can cost thousands of dollars and sometimes requires months to complete. Peter Hammond of University College London is developing a faster, potentially cheaper approach that uses computer analysis to spot facial characteristics associated with a variety of genetic disorders.
Hammond first projects a pattern of thousands of dots onto a patient’s face and then taken pictures of the face using a digital camera from the three sides, and from all the angles in order to capture the position of the dots. The next step is take these pi cuter and a special computer software analyze these images and convert them into three-dimensional “map” of the person’s face and compares this map to models of the face shapes linked with various genetic syndromes, including Noonan, Williams, and Fragile X. If the computer analysis indicates, for example, wide-set eyes, low ears, a small jaw, and drooping eyelids, the program might match it with Noonan syndrome, which often includes these features. Among children with one of the genetic disorders for which Hammond has compiled a face shape model, this technique has demonstrated greater than 90 percent accuracy.
So far, Hammond has modeled 12 of the 30 disorders he has studied. But your hospital might not be able to afford a scan machine yet. Custom-made to Hammond’s specs, they cost $40,000 to $60,000 each.
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