Portable Scanner Spots Vision Issues in Poorer Communities

Imagine having your eye health checked while waiting for a prescription at a pharmacy or in the midst of your daily commute.

A newly developed AI-powered scanning device might make such on-the-go ophthalmic care available, so people can have their eye health assessed at any place and any time, researchers wrote in the journal Scientific Reports.

The device can check for diseases like cataracts and glaucoma, researchers said.

“It is in a patient’s best interests to undergo regular check-ups, but this isn’t always easy,” senior researcher Toru Nakazawa said in a news release.

“The instruments needed to conduct these exams are expensive, bulky and largely confined to clinical settings,” said Nakazawa, of Tohoku University in Japan. “Patients in rural areas or with low mobility may not be able to access these vital screening tools — leaving them in the dark.”

These devices, called anterior-segment optical coherence tomography (AS-OCT) machines, are bulky and pricy, researchers said.

Nakazawa’s team designed an ultra-low-cost system to work as alternative. It works by capturing a single scanning-slit video, allowing AI to analyze changes to eye structures like the cornea, iris, lens, ocular surface and pigment.

A clinical study of 170 people found that the device agreed with results from standard machines, researchers said.

Overall, the device cost about $500 in materials, researchers said in their paper.

“The device performed reliably across diverse clinical presentations while maintaining excellent patient comfort, demonstrating its suitability for repeated use and community deployment,” researchers wrote.

However, more research is needed to validate the device’s accuracy, researchers said.