Imaging device for newborns may prompt universal vision screening

Take-home message: The recent approval of an imaging device for newborn vision screening allows clinicians to image the anterior and posterior segments, the angle, and the fundus.

By Fred Gebhart; Reviewed by Darius M. Moshfeghi, MD

Stanford, CA-A newly approved device for vision screening of all newborns (Panocam LT Wide-Field Imaging System, Visunex Medical Systems) captures a 130^o field of view of the anterior and posterior segments.

The hand-held imaging device-about the size of a cell phone-connects wirelessly to a portable base unit the size of a small suitcase, allowing image capture in multiple suites or exam lanes.

Editorial: 

“You can only treat what you see and you can only see if you look,” said Darius M. Moshfeghi, MD, professor of vitreoretinal surgery and director of ophthalmic telemedicine, Byers Eye Institute, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA.

“At this point, we only screen for retinopathy of prematurity, about 80,000 infants of the approximately four million live births in the United States each year,” Dr. Moshfeghi said. “The other 3.92 million infants get no vision screening until kindergarten."

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“We know from our own and others’ studies that up to 5% of those unscreened infants have some sort of visual pathology that could be detected at birth and treated-but only if we look for it,” he added. 

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