Smartphone-Based Retinal Camera Outperforms Tabletop System in Detecting Diabetic Retinopathy

Smartphones have revolutionized the world in countless ways by opening new possibilities beyond a phone. Healthcare industry is embracing this with a rigor 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 to prevent 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.
 
233 eyes were imaged using two devices—the Remidio Fundus-On-Phone (FOP), a smartphone-based portable fundus camera, and TOPCON TRC-50DX, a conventional desktop retinal-camera which then were compared to a standard clinical examination by an ophthalmologist for the detection of any type of DR. FOP scored over TRC-50DX in the areas of image quality, ease of use and patient comfort in the study. Images from FOP were found to be better than the images from the TRC-50DX desktop imaging system. 59-74 percent of images from FOP were deemed excellent compared to 52-61 percent on the TRC-50DX. A fewer number of images from FOP were deemed ungradable (1.7-2.1 percent) compared to the TRC-50DX (2.6-4.3 percent). This study has been published in the October issue of Ophthalmology Retina.
 
This exciting result is thus set to rewrite the existing protocols in diabetic retinopathy screening. It 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.
 
Remidio Innovative Solutions, is an Indian technology start-up that has developed patented technologies to transform a standard smartphone camera into a high quality and portable retinal camera providing point of care screening for DR while taking the output a notch higher. Earlier this year, an automated artificial intelligence algorithm was integrated on the Remidio FOP for the first time in the world—delivering 99.1 percent sensitivity in detecting Sight threatening Diabetic Retinopathy. That study was published in Nature EYE.