Adapting SmartPhones for Ocular Diagnosis

From the 19th century until today, we have seen an almost tenfold increase in the ocular injury rate on the battlefield. Injuries to the torso that in the past would have been fatal are now prevented or reduced through use of effective body armor. Although the ocular surface area represents only 0.27% of the body surface area the eye casualty rate in combat is 20 to 50 times greater than expected based on the body surface area. Compounding this problem is that there are very few eye doctors deployed in field hospitals. With ocular injuries accounting for up to 32% of injuries in disaster scenarios, limited access to eye doctors is not just a military problem. A portable eye examination system is needed that can help trained medical personnel diagnose eye injuries either on site, or remotely via telemedicine if they are not deployed to a given field hospital. This system should be easy to use for an untrained medic but also capable enough so that an optometrist, ophthalmologist or ophthalmic surgeons would find it useful. To address this need, SA Photonics has developed the concept"eyePhone", a hybrid slitlamp/ophthalmoscope that clips on to a smart phone.