Can We Trust the Use of Smartphone Cameras in Clinical Practice? Laypeople Assessment of Their Image Quality.

BACKGROUND Smartphone cameras are rapidly being introduced in medical practice, among other devices for image-based teleconsultation. Little is known, however, about the actual quality of the images taken, which is the object of this study. MATERIALS AND METHODS A series of nonclinical objects (from three broad categories) were photographed by a professional photographer using three smartphones (iPhone(®) 4 [Apple, Cupertino, CA], Samsung [Suwon, Korea] Galaxy S2, and BlackBerry(®) 9800 [BlackBerry Ltd., Waterloo, ON, Canada]) and a digital camera (Canon [Tokyo, Japan] Mark II). In a Web survey a convenience sample of 60 laypeople "blind" to the types of camera assessed the quality of the photographs, individually and best overall. We then measured how each camera scored by object category and as a whole and whether a camera ranked best using a Mann-Whitney U test for 2×2 comparisons. RESULTS There were wide variations between and within categories in the quality assessments for all four cameras. The iPhone had the highest proportion of images individually evaluated as good, and it also ranked best for more objects compared with other cameras, including the digital one. The ratings of the Samsung or the BlackBerry smartphone did not significantly differ from those of the digital camera. CONCLUSIONS Whereas one smartphone camera ranked best more often, all three smartphones obtained results at least as good as those of the digital camera. Smartphone cameras can be a substitute for digital cameras for the purposes of medical teleconsulation.