Smartphone-based Remidio Fundus-On-Phone Camera
Smartphones have revolutionized the world in countless ways by opening new possibilities beyond just as a phone. Healthcare industry is embracing this with a rigour like never before. Major drivers for this leap are their portability, relative affordability and ease of use.
One of the high impact areas for such smartphone-based technologies is in mass screening for preventable blindness due to Diabetic Retinopathy (DR).
A team of researchers from Aravind Eye Hospitals led by Dr Rengaraj Venkatesh and Dr Sabyasachi Sengupta scientifically assessed the use of smartphone-based screening for DR in a 2-year prospective study. The primary outcome of the study was to compare the sensitivity and specificity of the Remidio Fundus-On-Phone (FOP), a smartphone-based, portable fundus camera, and of TOPCON TRC-50DX, a traditional desktop fundus camera against standard clinical examination by an ophthalmologist for the detection of any type of DR.
233 eyes were imaged using both the devices and based on a comparison of the image grading output with clinicians' direct examination of the patients, images from FOP were found to better than the desktop system (TOPCON TRC-50DX) - images from the FOP were seen to be of excellent quality (59-74% vs 52-61%) which is unprecedented and quite surprising considering the cost of FOP being a fifth of the latter. These findings are set to rewrite the existing and conventional protocols in diabetic retinopathy screening. This is particularly re-assuring to 400 million patients with diabetes worldwide who are at the risk of losing vision due to DR, if not detected early.
FOP scored over TRC-50DX in the areas of image quality, ease of use and patient comfort in the study. Fewer number of images from FOP were deemed ungradable (1.7-2.1%) compared to the TOPCON TRC-50DX (2.6-4.3%). The Indian company, Remidio Innovative Solutions seems to have leveraged features of a standard smartphone camera in making a fundus camera portable, low cost while taking the output a notch higher. Earlier this year, an automated artificial intelligence algorithm was integrated on Remidio FOP for the first time in the world - delivering 99.1% sensitivity in detecting STDR or Sight threatening Diabetic Retinopathy. That study was published in Nature EYE.
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