Engineers and physicians at the University of Washington have developed an app called BiliCam that can detect jaundice in newborns using just a smartphone’s camera and flash plus a color calibration card the size of a business card. Jaundice is a yellowish discoloration of the skin resulting from an excess amount of bilirubin in the blood. Severe jaundice can cause kernicterus and brain damage.
The app is meant to be used by either parents or healthcare providers as a screening tool to help in deciding when a blood test is needed, in the first few days after birth. The app works by placing the calibration card on the baby’s belly, after which a photo is taken with the card in view. The app uses the card to calibrate and account for different lighting conditions and skin tones. Acquired data are then sent to the cloud and are analyzed by machine-learning algorithms after which the result is sent back to the app almost instantly.
The app was already tested in a clinical study with 100 newborns at UW Medical Center. A blood test and BiliCam were compared in babies when they were between two and five days old. The BiliCam performed as well as or better than the current screening tool. The researchers plan to test BiliCam on up to 1000 additional newborns, especially those with darker skin pigments. The researchers say they hope to gain FDA approval for the app within a couple of years.
Press release: New smartphone app can detect newborn jaundice in minutes…
App homepage: BiliCam…