Business And Technology

Smartphones can now detect eye cancer

By Joseph Lubandi

Posted on May 25, 2015

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Retinoblastoma is a rare type of aggressive eye cancer that almost exclusively affects young children. It develops as a tumor in the retina but can be diagnosed with just a smartphone.

Children who have the disease often have a white glow around their pupils that shows up when photographed with a flash — and it recently saved the life of Avery, Julie Fitzgerald’s two-year-old son.

“I just had this gut feeling in my stomach that something was wrong with his eye,” Fitzgerald told ABC News.

She had seen odd spots in the photos of her son that she had taken with her smartphone, but after seeing a viral story about an identical diagnosis, she decided to take her son to a doctor who confirmed the cancer.

Seeing a white flash in a child’s pupil isn’t a proven diagnosis but it’s mostly worth following up, says doctors.

“It’s much better to do an exam that has negative findings than to pass up an exam and not have it looked at,” Mayo Clinic ophthalmologist Michael W. Stewart told USA Today.
“When caught early [retinoblastoma is] very treatable. Current technology and chemotherapies can save the baby’s life and vision.”