Background: Digital imaging systems provide immediate, magnified image
s that can easily be analysed, enhanced, archived, printed on near pho
tographic-quality paper and transferred electronically to remote compu
ters. We have assembled a digital ophthalmic system and tested it on p
atients with some common causes of blindness: corneal scarring and cat
aract, diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration and glaucoma. Method
s: Digital images were obtained using a variety of ophthalmic imaging
devices ranging from slit-lamp, fundus camera, indirect ophthalmoscope
and scanning laser ophthalmoscope.These images were compressed in ord
er to concentrate image information (image size reduced by 90-95%) and
minimize transmission time (reduced by 97-98%). Standard or mobile te
lephone lines were used to transmit images to remote terminals. Result
s/Discussion: Transmission time was reduced from 15-20 min to 20-30 s
and the image size was reduced from 1.3 MB to 20-30 kB by compressing
the images before transmission. Image quality is still excellent.