A Portable Vision

Aston Vision Sciences’s Lumio is a compact anterior eye inspection tool that the company says is applicable in a broad range of clinical environments, including hospitals, clinics, ambulances, domiciliary visits, and military field operations. Its low-cost versatility “means it can also be used to detect conditions like trichiasis, dy eye and cataracts early in some of the world’s most at-risk communities,”  says Aston Vision Sciences founder, Karl Obszanski.  “Given the scale of avoidable blindness, [it] could be a game-changer for global healthcare.”

We sat down with Obszanski to find out more about the device.

Could you describe the Lumio and how it compares with other eye inspection devices?

The Lumio is compact and portable, with a 7x magnification lens and a white and blue light. The idea for it came from a partner who works in the domiciliary space. He sees a lot of older patients who have posture problems [and] who don’t really take instructions very well because they can’t hear or comprehend, and he was looking for a device that he could use comfortably with these patients.

Importantly, the Lumio comes with a clip-in fluorescein filter, which allows you to perform a fluorescein examination in a variety of settings without the need for a slit lamp. This is convenient for patients with various kinds of anterior eye diseases, especially dry eye. Our “trade secret” is that we’ve developed the color formula for the fluorescein filter to give a very good performance. Even in the low blue-light conditions, you can see what’s going on in the eye very clearly. You can look at tear film break-up, contact lens fitting, scratches on the cornea, foreign bodies, etc. You can also adjust the brightness of the light source. Clinicians tend to go for the brightest light possible because it gives them more visibility. But if this is uncomfortable for the patient, with this device you can reduce the brightness and still get the visibility you need.

What are the implications of this tech for low-economy countries, and how do you plan to reach patients in these areas?

These low-cost devices can be used in countries that can’t afford the healthcare we can afford. They could help organizations to reach many more patients. I’ve been speaking recently to charities such as Sightsavers, the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), and the Aravind Hospital Group in India. We have just sent two Lumio units to Avarind for testing, a couple to IAPB in Zimbabwe, and one to Nepal.

At the moment, we have a capacity to produce 1200 units a month. We’d be interested in working with one of these partners to maybe bring the cost down further and produce even higher-volume numbers. We’re proud to say the devices are made in the UK, but there is a cost to this. There are also cost barriers in terms of shipping them to some of these countries. But we want to offer a solution at the right price point, so in the future we could look at manufacturing the devices closer to the final use location.