Wollongong mother Anita Rowles has welcomed a new app that can scan smartphone photos for eye disease including cancer.
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The free White Eye Detector app – which looks for a potentially dangerous white or yellow eye glow – was developed by US chemist Bryan Shaw whose son Noah lost his eye to retinoblastoma.
Mrs Rowles little boy Patrick was born with the same rare eye cancer – which was picked up by a GP at seven weeks.
Patrick, now 13 months, has just completed his 10th - and hopefully last – round of chemotherapy and has lost much of the vision in his left eye.
Mrs Rowles urged new parents to download the app, with early detection the key to saving sight – and lives.
‘’It’s going to help a lot of parents identify any potential issues, and they they can go to their doctor to investigate further,’’ she said.
‘’You can either use it live by holding it up to the face of your child, or you can scan any old photos you have on your phone.
‘’We’ve downloaded the app to test it – and for every other member of the family the scan has come back as ‘normal’ while for Patrick it shows that there’s cause for concern.’’
Untreated, retinoblastoma is almost always fatal, so Mrs Rowles thanks her GP for picking up the glow in her son’s eye at the routine six-week checkup.
A GP’s spotlight – or the flash on phones – can uncover white spots in people’s eyes, with the white reflex a sign there could be a white mass in the back of the eye.
Some parents have been able to spot the signs of disease in the early stages simply by looking through their family photo albums.
‘’When the GP shone a light in Patrick’s eye he didn’t see the usual red reflection in the left eye, like there was in the right eye,’’ she said.
Retinoblastoma is the most common malignant eye cancer in children and is hereditary in around 50 per cent of cases.
‘’My husband and I tested negative for the gene, so Patrick’s gene mutation happened in utero,’’ Mrs Rowles said.
‘’He has good vision in his right eye, but can only see light and dark shadows from his left eye according to his specialist.
‘’He also seems to have some difficulty with depth perception – when he goes to grab something he’ll go past it – but we’ll know more once he can communicate with us.’’
The white glow can be an indicator of 16 diseases – it can also turn up on occasion in normal eyes. If seen consistently, it’s worth checking.
