Organizations: University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada · University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA · Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA · Looop Inc., Tokyo, Japan · Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA · Miro, Amsterdam, Netherlands · NVIDIA, Santa Clara, CA, USA · Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA · Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Advances in processing power, camera technologies, and mobile image analysis have made smartphones and other mobile devices, such as laptops, increasingly suitable for medical diagnosis and healthcare applications. Researchers have developed low-cost solutions for the early detection and monitoring of various health conditions, including eye and ENT diseases, malnutrition, heart rate variability, skin and oral conditions, and injuries, using images captured by non-medical devices such as smartphones and webcams. This survey examines existing research on mobile image-based medical diagnosis, with an emphasis on its potential to enable low-cost and accessible healthcare. We comparatively analyze state-of-the-art solutions across different healthcare application categories, examining their advantages and limitations. Based on this analysis, we identify desirable characteristics of mobile image-based diagnostic tools and highlight areas where existing approaches have made progress as well as areas requiring further research. We also discuss application-specific and common challenges and outline directions for future research. Overall, this study provides a comprehensive overview of mobile image-based healthcare solutions and their potential to support low-cost disease diagnosis and monitoring, particularly for underserved populations in remote and resource-constrained settings.
Figures & tables
Figure 1 : Mobile image analysis in healthcare applications
Figure 2 : Taxonomy graph for included diseases categorized by application area
Specifications
( 7 )
( 13 )
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Requires internet connection for high performance computing
✓
✗
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N/S
✓
Requires skilled users
✓
✗
✓
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✗
Requires additional equipment
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
Considers dark and noisy environment
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Considers movement artifacts
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Model integrated into a mobile application
N/A
✓
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✓
N/A
Table 1 : Pros and cons of representative literature in diabetic retinopathy
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Requires internet connection for high performance computing
✗
✓
N/S
N/S
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N/S
N/S
N/S
N/S
N/S
Requires skilled users
✗
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Requires additional equipment
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✓
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Considers dark and noisy environment
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✓
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✓
✓
✓
Considers movement artifacts
N/A
N/A
✓
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✓
✓
✓
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Model integrated into a mobile application
✓
✓
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✓
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Table 2 : Pros and cons of representative literature in heart rate variability
Specifications
( 76 )
( 69 )
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( 73 )
Requires skilled users
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Requires additional equipment
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✓
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Considers dark and noisy environment
N/S
N/S
N/S
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Model integrated into a mobile application
✓
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✓
✓
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Supports devices with variant configurations
N/S
N/S
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Performance validation w.r.t ground truth
✓
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✓
✓
✓
Table 3 : Pros and cons of representative literature in skin cancer
Specifications
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Requires internet connection for high performance computing
✗
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N/S
Requires skilled users to operate the system
✓
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Requires additional equipment
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Requires additional information input by a trained professional
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✓
Considers dark and noisy environment
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✓
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Accounts for other objects present in the image except skin
✓
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✓
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✓
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Table 4 : Pros and cons of representative literature in inflammatory skin diseases
Specifications
( 88 )
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Requires internet connection for high performance computing
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
Requires skilled users
✗
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Requires additional equipment
✗
✗
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Considers dark and noisy environment
N/S
N/S
N/S
N/S
N/S
Model integrated into a mobile application
✗
✗
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Supports devices with variant configurations
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Table 5 : Pros and cons of representative literature in skin burn
Figure 3 : Architecture for image analysis for medical diagnosis
Appendix figures & tables1 asset
Supplementary material from the paper’s appendix.
Appendix
Category
Disease
Description
Eye Diseases
Diabetic Retinopathy (DR)
Diabetic Retinopathy is an eye disease that damages the retina due to diabetes mellitus, often leading to blindness in working adults. Symptoms: Gradually worsening vision, sudden vision loss, floaters, blurred or patchy vision, eye pain or redness, difficulty seeing in the dark. Diagnosis: Diagnosed through stereoscopic fundus photographs.
Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP)
Retinopathy of Prematurity is an eye disease observed in premature infants and is a leading cause of blindness in children, preventable if treated early. Symptoms: Unusual eye movements, white pupils, vision loss. Diagnosis: Diagnosed using fundus images.
Cataract
Cataract is a common eye condition in the elderly that leads to poor vision and eventually blindness. Symptoms: Clouded or blurry vision, difficulty seeing at night, light sensitivity, seeing halos around lights, frequent changes in eyeglass prescription. Diagnosis: Diagnosed through a visual acuity test.
Glaucoma
Glaucoma is a cause of visual impairment and blindness that is often asymptomatic in its early stages, leading to undiagnosed cases until advanced. Symptoms: Intense eye pain, nausea, vomiting, red eyes, headaches, seeing rings around lights, blurred vision. Diagnosis: Diagnosed using the Goldmann tonometer.
Malnutrition
Obesity
Obesity, characterized by excess body weight, is a major health condition leading to various associated health problems. Symptoms: Breathlessness, increased sweating, snoring, difficulty in physical activity, frequent tiredness, joint and back pain. Diagnosis: Diagnosed through anthropometric measures such as weight, height, BMI, and waist-hip ratio.
Hemoglobin Deficiency
Hemoglobin carries oxygen to the body’s tissues, and a deficiency may signal iron-deficient anemia caused by malnutrition, among other diseases. Symptoms: Pale skin, brittle nails, pica syndrome (eating non-food items), lightheadedness when standing, shortness of breath, sore or inflamed tongue, mouth ulcers. Diagnosis: Diagnosed through blood tests.
Appendix
Table 6 : Summary of Various Healthcare Categories
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA · Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA · Wilmer Eye Institute, Department of Ophthalmology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA +3