Voice of Commonwealth

Anemia detection through the eye

Share

Science & Technology, UK (Commonwealth Union) – The advance in technology has made has given many scientists greater optimism in recent times of delivering more cost-effective diagnostics and treatments. High costs and long durations in diagnostics can often hinder the treatment of various conditions.

Scientists from the University College London (UCL) have had success with a technology capable of forecasting anemia in children, simply with the use of smartphone images.

The study, appearing in PLOS ONE, had researchers and clinicians at UCL Engineering, UCLH and Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Ghana join hands to explore a new non-invasive diagnostic method by utilizing smartphone photographs of the eye together with the face.

The advancement of this technology can lead to anemia screening being more accessible for children in Ghana along with other low- and middle-income nations having increased rates of the condition as a result of iron deficiency, as the screening tool is more economical than presently available options while providing results in a single sitting.

The paper takes further prior successful studies carried out by the same team evaluating applications of an app known as neoSCB, that can identify jaundice in newborn babies.

Anemia is a medical condition that occurs when the body doesn’t have enough red blood cells or hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout the body. This can result in a reduced ability of the blood to carry oxygen to tissues and organs, leading to symptoms such as fatigue, weakness, dizziness, shortness of breath, and pale skin.

There are many types of anemia, each with their own causes, including iron-deficiency anemia, vitamin-deficiency anemia, anemia of chronic disease, hemolytic anemia, and sickle cell anemia. Anemia can be diagnosed through a blood test and treated depending on the underlying cause, such as iron supplements, vitamin supplements, medication, or blood transfusions.

The 1st author, PhD candidate Thomas Wemyss of the UCL Medical Physics & Biomedical Engineering says “Smartphones are globally popular, but research using smartphone imaging to diagnose diseases shows a general trend of experiencing difficulty when transferring results to different groups of people.

“We are excited to see these promising results in a group which is often underrepresented in research into smartphone diagnostics. An affordable and reliable technique to screen for anaemia using a smartphone could drive long-term improvements in quality of life for a large amount of people.”

During the 1980s a handheld device, the HemoCue, was produced to give more instant results, however this came with significant upfront and ongoing costs, as well as the requirement for a finger-prick blood sample.

The scientists were aware that hemoglobin has a very characteristic color as a result of the way it absorbs light, hence they targeted a method to take smartphone photographs and utilize it to predict the presence of anemia.

Photos obtained from 43 children below 4 years old were analyzed, and recruited to be a part of the study back in 2018. The images were of 3 regions where minimal skin pigmentation takes place in the body (the white of the eye, the lower lip as well as the lower eyelid).

The team discovered that when these were studied together in forecasting blood hemoglobin concentration, they had the ability to successfully identify all cases of individuals with the most intense classification of anemia, and to identify milder anemia at rates having an increased chance of being clinically useful.

Principal investigator Dr Terence Leung of the UCL Medical Physics & Biomedical Engineering says “Since 2018, we’ve been working with University of Ghana on affordable ways to improve healthcare using smartphones. Following our success in screening neonatal jaundice, we are so excited to see that the smartphone imaging technique can also apply to anaemia screening in young children and infants.”

Read more

More News