Scholars@Duke
construction release_alert
Scholars@Duke will be down for maintenance for approximately one hour starting Tuesday, 11/11 @1pm ET
cancel
Majda Hadziahmetovic

Majda Hadziahmetovic

Associate Professor of Ophthalmology
Ophthalmology, Vitreoretinal Diseases & Surgery

Selected Publications

Artificial intelligence in age-related macular degeneration: Advancing diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment.

Journal Article Surv Ophthalmol · September 18, 2025 Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of irreversible vision loss in older adults. While anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) therapy and novel treatments for geographic atrophy have improved management, timely diagnosis ... Full text Link to item Cite

Impact of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists on diabetic retinopathy: A meta-analysis of clinical studies emphasising retinal changes as a primary outcome.

Journal Article Clin Exp Ophthalmol · 2025 BACKGROUND: To determine if glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RA) are associated with the development and progression of diabetic retinopathy (DR). METHODS: A systematic search was conducted on PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Embase from incept ... Full text Link to item Cite

Clinical Outcomes of Therapeutic Interventions for Autoimmune Retinopathy: A Meta-analysis and Systematic Review.

Journal Article Ophthalmol Sci · 2025 TOPIC: Autoimmune retinopathy (AIR) is a group of rare inflammatory diseases treated with immunosuppression; however, there is no treatment consensus. This meta-analysis and review aims to investigate treatment effectiveness in slowing AIR progression. CLI ... Full text Link to item Cite

Evaluating photodynamic therapy as an adjuvant treatment for neovascular AMD: A comprehensive meta-analysis.

Journal Article Asia Pac J Ophthalmol (Phila) · 2025 PURPOSE: This study aimed to assess the role of photodynamic therapy (PDT) as an adjunct to anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (Anti-VEGF) intravitreal injections in the treatment of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nvAMD). METHODS: PubMe ... Full text Link to item Cite

How Foundational Is the Retina Foundation Model? Estimating RETFound's Label Efficiency on Binary Classification of Normal versus Abnormal OCT Images.

Journal Article Ophthalmol Sci · 2025 OBJECTIVE: While the availability of public internet-scale datasets of images and language has catalyzed remarkable progress in machine learning, medical datasets are constrained by regulations protecting patient privacy and the time and cost required for ... Full text Link to item Cite

Risk Factors for Worsening Morphology and Visual Acuity in Eyes with Adult-Onset Foveomacular Vitelliform Dystrophy.

Journal Article Ophthalmol Retina · August 2024 PURPOSE: To explore clinical risk factors and OCT features associated with worse visual acuity (VA), progression of disease, choroidal neovascularization (CNV), and atrophy in eyes with adult-onset foveomacular vitelliform dystrophy (AOFVD). DESIGN: Single ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Use of Optical Coherence Tomography for Early Glaucoma Screening in a Population of Patients with Diabetes.

Journal Article Ophthalmic Epidemiol · April 2024 PURPOSE: The utility of screening for early diagnosis of glaucoma remains a widely debated topic in the care of ophthalmic patients. There are currently no population-based guidelines regarding screening for glaucoma. The purpose of this study is to determ ... Full text Link to item Cite

Longitudinal Choroidal Development in Preterm Infants.

Journal Article Ophthalmol Sci · 2024 PURPOSE: To characterize changes in subfoveal choroidal thickness in preterm infants from 30 to 60 weeks' postmenstrual age (PMA). DESIGN: The prospective, observational Study of Eye Imaging in Preterm infantS (BabySTEPS) enrolled infants eligible for reti ... Full text Link to item Cite

A Deep-Learning Algorithm to Predict Short-Term Progression to Geographic Atrophy on Spectral-Domain Optical Coherence Tomography.

Journal Article JAMA Ophthalmol · November 1, 2023 IMPORTANCE: The identification of patients at risk of progressing from intermediate age-related macular degeneration (iAMD) to geographic atrophy (GA) is essential for clinical trials aimed at preventing disease progression. DeepGAze is a fully automated a ... Full text Link to item Cite

Demo Abstract: Edge-based Augmented Reality Guidance System for Retinal Laser Therapy via Feature Matching

Conference IPSN 2023 Proceedings of the 2023 22nd International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks · May 9, 2023 In ophthalmology, retinal laser therapy is a treatment for retinopathy that requires the use of magnifying lens to treat damaged regions of retinal landmarks, hence creating challenges of inverted magnified images and requiring prolonged training. Augmente ... Full text Cite

Risk factors for the development or progression of diabetic retinopathy in pregnancy: Meta-analysis and systematic review.

Journal Article Clin Exp Ophthalmol · April 2023 BACKGROUND: Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is the leading cause of blindness in the working-age population, and it increases in severity during pregnancy. METHODS: Systematic review of literature from PubMed, Cochrane Library and Web of Science using keywords ' ... Full text Link to item Cite

GLP-1 receptor agonists and diabetic retinopathy: A meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials.

Journal Article Surv Ophthalmol · 2023 Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) are used to treat type 2 diabetes mellitus. Recent research suggests that GLP-1 RAs may influence diabetic retinopathy (DR). We searched ClinicalTrials.gov for trials comparing FDA-approved GLP-1 RAs to ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Impact of Pregnancy on Diabetic Retinopathy: A Single-Site Study of Clinical Risk Factors.

Journal Article Ophthalmic Res · 2023 INTRODUCTION: This study aimed to provide information on modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors for the progression and development of diabetic retinopathy (DR) and diabetic macular edema (DME). This retrospective chart review case-control study was de ... Full text Link to item Cite

Deep learning for longitudinal OCT retinal layer thickness and AMD progression prediction

Conference INVESTIGATIVE OPHTHALMOLOGY & VISUAL SCIENCE · 2023 Cite

Augmented reality for retinal laser therapy

Conference INVESTIGATIVE OPHTHALMOLOGY & VISUAL SCIENCE · 2023 Cite

Autoimmune-Related Retinopathy Presenting As Plaquenil Toxicity in Patients With Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.

Journal Article J Vitreoretin Dis · 2023 Purpose: To report 3 cases of autoimmune retinopathy (AIR) in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) to explore the association between these conditions and highlight additional clinical consideration of AIR in patients presenting with atypical r ... Full text Link to item Cite

Adult-onset foveomacular vitelliform dystrophy: epidemiology, pathophysiology, imaging, and prognosis.

Journal Article Front Ophthalmol (Lausanne) · 2023 Adult-onset foveomacular dystrophy (AOFVD) is a retinal pattern dystrophy that may affect up to 1 in 7,400 individuals. There is much that is unknown regarding this disease's epidemiology, risk factors for development, and rate of progression through its f ... Full text Link to item Cite

Demo Abstract: Through an AR Lens: Augmented Reality Magnification through Feature Detection and Matching

Conference Sensys 2022 Proceedings of the 20th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems · November 6, 2022 Sensing and Augmented Reality (AR) can benefit a wide range of applications that involve the use of magnifying lenses. Recent developments in AR magnification provide a direct overlay of the magnified scenes in AR. However, instrumentation tasks that requi ... Full text Cite

Evaluation of a deep learning supported remote diagnosis model for identification of diabetic retinopathy using wide-field Optomap

Journal Article Annals of Eye Science · June 1, 2022 Background: We test a deep learning (DL) supported remote diagnosis approach to detect diabetic retinopathy (DR) and other referable retinal pathologies using ultra-wide-field (UWF) Optomap. Methods: Prospective, non-randomized study involving diabetic pat ... Full text Cite

Incidence of Referable Retinal Disease in Diabetic Patients at a Primary Care Practice.

Journal Article J Vitreoretin Dis · 2022 PURPOSE: This work tests the feasibility of remote ophthalmic imaging to identify referable retinal abnormalities and assesses the effectiveness of color fundus photography (CFP) vs optical coherence tomography (OCT) for this purpose. METHODS: This prospec ... Full text Link to item Cite

GRADIENT IMPORTANCE LEARNING FOR INCOMPLETE OBSERVATIONS

Conference Iclr 2022 10th International Conference on Learning Representations · January 1, 2022 Though recent works have developed methods that can generate estimates (or imputations) of the missing entries in a dataset to facilitate downstream analysis, most depend on assumptions that may not align with real-world applications and could suffer from ... Cite

Gradient Importance Learning for Incomplete Observations

Journal Article · July 5, 2021 Though recent works have developed methods that can generate estimates (or imputations) of the missing entries in a dataset to facilitate downstream analysis, most depend on assumptions that may not align with real-world applications and could suffer from ... Link to item Cite

Automated Identification of Referable Retinal Pathology in Teleophthalmology Setting.

Journal Article Transl Vis Sci Technol · May 3, 2021 PURPOSE: This study aims to meet a growing need for a fully automated, learning-based interpretation tool for retinal images obtained remotely (e.g. teleophthalmology) through different imaging modalities that may include imperfect (uninterpretable) images ... Full text Link to item Cite

Automated Recognition of Retinal Pigment Epithelium Cells on Limited Training Samples Using Neural Networks.

Journal Article Transl Vis Sci Technol · June 2020 PURPOSE: To develop a neural network (NN)-based approach, with limited training resources, that identifies and counts the number of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells in confocal microscopy images obtained from cell culture or mice RPE/choroid flat-mou ... Full text Link to item Cite

Deep Learning Approach for Automated Recognition of Retinal Pigment Epithelium Cell

Conference INVESTIGATIVE OPHTHALMOLOGY & VISUAL SCIENCE · 2020 Cite

Age-Related Macular Degeneration Revisited: From Pathology and Cellular Stress to Potential Therapies.

Journal Article Front Cell Dev Biol · 2020 Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a neurodegenerative disease of the aging retina, in which patients experience severe vision loss. Therapies available to patients are limited and are only effective in a sub-population of patients. Future comprehen ... Full text Link to item Cite

Evaluation of a Remote Diagnosis Imaging Model vs Dilated Eye Examination in Referable Macular Degeneration.

Journal Article JAMA Ophthalmol · July 1, 2019 IMPORTANCE: In improving clinical outcomes, developing a sustainable, transformative care delivery model is important for accessible, efficient, low-cost, high-quality community-based imaging and diagnosis of retinal diseases. OBJECTIVE: To test the feasib ... Full text Link to item Cite

Remote diagnosis of referable macular pathology in high disease prevalence communities

Conference INVESTIGATIVE OPHTHALMOLOGY & VISUAL SCIENCE · July 1, 2019 Link to item Cite

Region-specific ischemia, neovascularization and macular oedema in treatment-naïve proliferative diabetic retinopathy.

Journal Article Clin Exp Ophthalmol · September 2018 IMPORTANCE: Region-specific pathology in proliferative diabetic retinopathy enhances our understanding and management of this disease. BACKGROUND: To investigate non-perfusion, neovascularization and macular oedema. DESIGN: A cross-sectional, observational ... Full text Link to item Cite

TISSUE-AUTONOMOUS REGULATION OF RETINAL IRON TRANSPORT

Conference AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HEMATOLOGY · August 1, 2017 Link to item Cite

Iron importers Zip8 and Zip14 are expressed in retina and regulated by retinal iron levels.

Journal Article Exp Eye Res · February 2017 Intracellular retinal iron accumulation has been implicated in the pathogenesis of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of irreversible blindness among individuals over the age of 50. Ceruloplasmin/hephaestin double knockout mice (Cp/H ... Full text Link to item Cite

Cp/Heph mutant mice have iron-induced neurodegeneration diminished by deferiprone.

Journal Article J Neurochem · December 2015 Brain iron accumulates in several neurodegenerative diseases and can cause oxidative damage, but mechanisms of brain iron homeostasis are incompletely understood. Patients with mutations in the cellular iron-exporting ferroxidase ceruloplasmin (Cp) have br ... Full text Link to item Cite

The oral iron chelator deferiprone protects against systemic iron overload-induced retinal degeneration in hepcidin knockout mice.

Journal Article Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci · June 26, 2014 PURPOSE: To investigate the retinal-protective effects of the oral iron chelator deferiprone (DFP) in mice lacking the iron regulatory hormone hepcidin (Hepc). These Hepc knockout (KO) mice have age-dependent systemic and retinal iron accumulation leading ... Full text Link to item Cite

Increased Risk of Ophthalmic Disease in Patients with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome

Conference INVESTIGATIVE OPHTHALMOLOGY & VISUAL SCIENCE · April 1, 2014 Link to item Cite

Higher than Expected Prevalence of Glaucoma in Community Centered Practice

Conference INVESTIGATIVE OPHTHALMOLOGY & VISUAL SCIENCE · April 1, 2014 Link to item Cite

Microarray analysis of murine retinal light damage reveals changes in iron regulatory, complement, and antioxidant genes in the neurosensory retina and isolated RPE.

Journal Article Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci · August 7, 2012 PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate light damage-induced transcript changes within neurosensory retina (NSR) and isolated retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). Similar studies have been conducted previously, but were usually limited to the NS ... Full text Link to item Cite

Systemic administration of the iron chelator deferiprone protects against light-induced photoreceptor degeneration in the mouse retina.

Journal Article Free Radic Biol Med · July 1, 2012 Oxidative stress plays a key role in a light-damage (LD) model of retinal degeneration as well as in age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Since iron can promote oxidative stress, the iron chelator deferiprone (DFP) was tested for protection against ligh ... Full text Link to item Cite

Ferroxidase hephaestin's cell-autonomous role in the retinal pigment epithelium.

Journal Article Am J Pathol · April 2012 Hephaestin (Heph) is a ferroxidase protein that converts ferrous to ferric iron to facilitate cellular iron export by ferroportin. Many tissues express either Heph or its homologue, ceruloplasmin (Cp), but the retina expresses both. In mice, a combined sys ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Oral Iron Chelator Deferiprone Protects Against Retinal Degeneration Induced through Diverse Mechanisms.

Journal Article Transl Vis Sci Technol · 2012 PURPOSE: To investigate the effect of the iron chelator deferiprone (DFP) on sodium iodate (NaIO3)-induced retinal degeneration and on the hereditary retinal degeneration caused by the rd6 mutation. METHODS: Retinas from NaIO3-treated C57BL/6J mice, with o ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Oral Iron Chelator Deferiprone Protects Against Retinal Degeneration Induced through Diverse Mechanisms.

Journal Article Transl Vis Sci Technol · 2012 PURPOSE: To investigate the effect of the iron chelator deferiprone (DFP) on sodium iodate (NaIO3)-induced retinal degeneration and on the hereditary retinal degeneration caused by the rd6 mutation. METHODS: Retinas from NaIO3-treated C57BL/6J mice, with o ... Full text Link to item Cite

Bmp6 regulates retinal iron homeostasis and has altered expression in age-related macular degeneration.

Journal Article Am J Pathol · July 2011 Iron-induced oxidative stress causes hereditary macular degeneration in patients with aceruloplasminemia. Similarly, retinal iron accumulation in age-related macular degeneration (AMD) may exacerbate the disease. The cause of retinal iron accumulation in A ... Full text Link to item Cite

DICER1 deficit induces Alu RNA toxicity in age-related macular degeneration.

Journal Article Nature · March 17, 2011 Geographic atrophy (GA), an untreatable advanced form of age-related macular degeneration, results from retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) cell degeneration. Here we show that the microRNA (miRNA)-processing enzyme DICER1 is reduced in the RPE of humans wi ... Full text Link to item Cite

The oral iron chelator deferiprone protects against iron overload-induced retinal degeneration.

Journal Article Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci · February 16, 2011 PURPOSE: Iron-induced oxidative stress may exacerbate age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Ceruloplasmin/Hephaestin double-knockout (DKO) mice with age-dependent retinal iron accumulation and some features of AMD were used to test retinal protection by ... Full text Link to item Cite

Age-dependent retinal iron accumulation and degeneration in hepcidin knockout mice.

Journal Article Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci · January 5, 2011 PURPOSE: Iron dysregulation can cause retinal disease, yet retinal iron regulatory mechanisms are incompletely understood. The peptide hormone hepcidin (Hepc) limits iron uptake from the intestine by triggering degradation of the iron transporter ferroport ... Full text Link to item Cite

Peptide Hormone Hepcidin Regulates Retinal Iron Homeostasis

Conference INVESTIGATIVE OPHTHALMOLOGY & VISUAL SCIENCE · April 1, 2010 Link to item Cite

Iron homeostasis and eye disease.

Journal Article Biochim Biophys Acta · July 2009 BACKGROUND: Iron is necessary for life, but excess iron can be toxic to tissues. Iron is thought to damage tissues primarily by generating oxygen free radicals through the Fenton reaction. METHODS: We present an overview of the evidence supporting iron's p ... Full text Link to item Cite

Oxidative stress in diseases of the human cornea.

Journal Article Free Radic Biol Med · October 15, 2008 Intense exposure to light, robust metabolic activity, and high oxygen tension render the human eye particularly vulnerable to oxidative damage and the list of ophthalmological disorders implicating reactive oxygen and nitrogen species is rapidly expanding. ... Full text Link to item Cite

Ceruloplasmin/hephaestin knockout mice model morphologic and molecular features of AMD.

Journal Article Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci · June 2008 PURPOSE: Iron is an essential element in human metabolism but also is a potent generator of oxidative damage with levels that increase with age. Several studies suggest that iron accumulation may be a factor in age-related macular degeneration (AMD). In pr ... Full text Link to item Cite

Identification of a glutathione S-transferase without affinity for glutathione sepharose in human kidney.

Journal Article Amino Acids · June 2006 To identify kidney glutathione S-transferase (GST) isoenzyme, which does not bind to glutathione affinity column, biochemical characterization was performed by using an array of substrates and by measuring sensitivity to inhibitors. Immunological character ... Full text Link to item Cite