Antibiotic resistance has become a great concern in the last decades. In the U.S., at least 2 million people suffer from antibiotic resistance-related illnesses. Otitis Media (OM) is the number one cause of antibiotic prescriptions for children in the US. However, not every case of OM requires antibiotic therapy and accurate diagnosis is crucial for the appropriate treatment. We investigate whether a multimode smartphone-based otoscope, which is capable of fluorescence and spectral imaging, allows us to discriminate between OM types with better accuracy. Experimental results demonstrate that the multimode smartphone-based otoscope may become a potential tool for the accurate discrimination between OM cases, preventing misprescriptions of antibiotic agents with the addition of remote diagnostics.
|