London: Using smartphones to capture photographs of patients’ eyes for check-up may lead to misdiagnosis as camera colour sensors vary and as a result, images of the same eye may appear different depending on the model of smartphone used, warn researchers. The study suggests that calibration of phone cameras is vital to capture accurate data. Eye examinations to look for redness in the eye can indicate a variety of conditions including conjunctivitis, dry-eye disease and tear-gland dysfunction.
Clinicians increasingly use smartphones in conjunction with ophthalmic imaging equipment, such as the eyepiece of a slit lamp, because of their portability, ease of use and relatively low cost. The connectivity also allows for upload to the Cloud, which is useful for telemedicine - the remote diagnosis and treatment of patients using telecommunications technology - and Artificial Intelligence applications that store thousands of images from different institutions. However, the autofocus algorithms and hardware specifications of cameras may be different for different manufacturers which means different cameras can produce different results for the same scene. (IANS)