A Low Cost Integrated Retinal-Imaging System for Smartphone

Abstract

Purpose: To design and develop a low cost downloadable universal smartphone retinal-imaging system and to illustrate its potential clinical application as a teleophthalmology system.   Methods: The system involves a phone adapter and a software. The adapter was designed with a computer aided design software and 3D printed. The soft copy of the 3D model were made available online for download and 3D printing in a different region of the world. The software was a custom-designed multifunction iOS application that serves as a teleophthalmology platform. Retinal images were taken from a patient and compared to that of a standard fundus camera.   Results: The system was successfully developed and the retinal image taken were of sufficient quality and comparable to the retinal photograph acquired with a standard fundus camera.   Conclusions: Our study confirmed that a low cost universal smartphone adapter could be downloaded and 3D printed instantly for retinal photography. The integration of the custom-designed mobile application made it novel and user-friendly.