The use of digital cameras in a mobile retinal screening environment

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Abstract
Aims To assess how successfully digital camera technology might be incorporated into a mobile screening environment. Methods One hundred and ninety‐seven people had their fundi photographed using a Topcon/Imagenet digital system and 534 using a Canon CR5/Ris‐Lite system in addition to concurrent 45° CR4NM Polaroid photography. One hundred and eighteen randomly selected patients were also sent for 7 field stereo photography as a gold standard. An acceptability questionnaire was answered by a random sample of those photographed Results For the detection of any retinopathy, digital pictures had a sensitivity of 0.74 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.68–0.80) whilst Polaroid was 0.72 (95% CI 0.66–0.78) and for referable retinopathy digital pictures had a sensitivity of 0.85 (95%CI 0.80–0.90) and Polaroid was 0.90 (95% CI 0.86–0.94). A concurrent ophthalmoscopic evaluation improved the sensitivity to 0.92 (95% CI 0.86–0.98) for detection of any retinopathy whilst the sensitivity at the referral level was improved to 0.95 (95% CI 0.91–0.99). Twenty‐nine of 176 respondents experienced flash discomfort with the Polaroid system with only four of 154 describing ‘some’ discomfort from the digital systems which have a lower flash power (10 W vs. 300 W) and a faster recovery time. Conclusions This study indicates that digital systems are a feasible and acceptable alternative to Polaroid‐based cameras for use in a mobile environment.