Researchers at the Medical and Surgical Center for Retina have developed software that detects eye diseases such as diabetic macular edema using a smartphone.
The technology was designed for general physicians who support the health system in Mexico to detect certain abnormalities without an ophthalmologist and send the patient to the specialist.
It's obviously better and cheaper to prevent blindness rather than try to cure it so an app on a cellphone that just needs to focus on the eye is better in all ways. This is especially important in rural communities, where expertise areas such as ophthalmology won't be commonly available.
What diabetic macular edema is like. Credit: Medical and Surgical Center for Retina
The software was developed in collaboration with biomedical engineers from the ITESM and uses the camera of the phone to detect any abnormality in the thickness of the retina. "The idea is to detect and prevent diseases in general practice. We are not replacing the specialist, we want to know which patients have a disease and make an early detection," says Dr. Juan Carlos Altamirano Vallejo, medical director of the Medical and Surgical Center for Retina.
"It will help those that when they go to the eye doctor are already blind, we needed to go a step back, to know who is at risk and needs to go to a specialist. Not wait for a doctor."
The Medical and Surgical Center for Retina is a small group with ten people dedicated to ophthalmology and retina special medical care. It it also dedicated to biomedical and pharmaceutical research, to develop diagnostics and equipment, applicable to society. They expect it to be marketed soon.
