iPhone is "Eye-Phone" for Pediatric Eye Surgeons in India

Narayana Nethralaya Pilots Breakthrough Telemedicine on iPhone in Quest to End Blindness in Children

Narayana Nethralaya Postgraduate Institute of Ophthalmology, Bangalore has helped evolve a unique tele-medicine software which allows screening of rural and semi-urban infants for a potentially blinding condition called Retinopathy of Prematurity along with other common conditions including ocular cancers.

The Condition

“Retinopathy of Prematurity is the leading cause of preventable infant blindness worldwide. In India, over 8% of 27 million births each year are at risk of this potentially blinding condition. Roughly if 100 ‘at-risk’ infants are screened, 15-20% may require treatment that can prevent blindness. This requires a fast and efficient system of screening infants especially in the peripheral rural areas where expertise is lacking”, said Dr Anand Vinekar, Project Co-Ordinator & Pediatric Retinal Surgeon, Narayana Nethralaya, Bangalore.

"ROP requires treatment after diagnosis within 48 to 72 hours to prevent blindness. The problem in India is that the country has about 15 to 20 doctors trained to diagnose and treat patients with ROP, and they are located in the cities," Vinekar added.

The Solution

Laboratory assistants take pictures of the retinas of prematurely born babies and transmit them via broadband to pediatric eye surgeons, who could be hundreds or thousands of miles away.

These surgeons, using iPhones, enlarge the images and using the iPhone's graphics capabilities determine whether the baby needs immediate help.

"We wanted a standard platform and the iPhone proved to be the best. With other (GSM) handsets you find that different models have different features. With a Nokia for instance, you have many models which do or do not have all the features we need. So it was easy to standardize on the iPhone. The iPhone's large screen, resolution, graphics capabilities and features offered the good picture quality doctors require, and security in the form of easy-to-publish Adobe software -- which also helps to upload patient records immediately and securely," Vinekar said.

In addition to the graphics processing capabilities that the chip industry has provided through the iPhone, it is chipping in with the software used in treating RoP. This comes from i2i Telesolutions, a startup launched by an ex-Texas Instruments India executive, Sham Banerji.

"The iPhone's pinch-and-drag capabilities, apart from its amazing resolution, are unrivaled in other phone models and the surgeons therefore decided that this is best-suited for this kind of application," Banerji said. 

In India alone, thousands of children go blind every year. These numbers could fall as a result of efforts by Vinekar and others like him, along with the help of the government.

Currently, Vinekar, with surgeons such as Anna Ills of Calgary, Canada, are joining with regional governments and non-governmental bodies to use the broadband and the iPhone to fight blindness in newborns everywhere in the world.

Real World Heroes

The man in this picture is 32 year-old Dr Shiva, an eye surgeon living in the state of Orissa in India. The woman is ophthalmologist Dr Lucy Mathen from the London-based charity Second Sight. The boys are 9 year-old Subala Suna and 12 year-old Ranjit Bariha. Both were blind and had their sight restored by cataract surgery.

Earlier this year, Lucy met Dr Shiva and discovered that: - He had single-handedly cured 6,000 blind people in the past year - He had offered all the surgery free of charge - He took no salary and sleeps on the floor of his office - He works from 4.30am till midnight most days. Why?

Because the state of Orissa has at least half a million people unnecessarily blind from cataract. And he can restore sight in just three minutes (perhaps five minutes when it comes to children like the two in this picture).

Shiva comes from a poor family himself. So he has dedicated his life as an ophthalmologist to eradicating blindness from his home state. With his surgical skills he could be earning a fortune in one of India’s wealthy cities (where 80 per cent of eye surgeons work in private practice).

Second Sight seeks out doctors like Dr Shiva who are actually curing the blind. Second Sight's own experienced volunteer surgeons also work alongside teams like Dr Shiva’s and cure the blind themselves.

Second Sight does not spend one penny of donated money on office costs. Second Sight is run by volunteers. So your donation goes straight to the hospital where the operation is carried out.