Development of a ring light camera system for easy photography of the oral cavity and pharynx in daily medical practice

Abstract

Photography in the oral cavity and pharynx has been mainly performed using a digital still camera equipped with a ring light; however, with conventional ring light camera units, photography in the oral cavity and pharynx often failed in patients with difficult problems, including limited opening of the mouth, strong gag reflex, infants or children and so on. We developed a new ring light camera system for the oral cavity and pharynx, which is composed of 20 high brightness light-emitting diodes （LEDs） arranged in a ring with an inside diameter of 3cm, a close-up lens and a mirrorless camera with interchangeable lenses.
This system has several advantages: it can throw enough light into the oral cavity and pharynx even in patients with difficulty in opening the mouth or in the case of younger children; it can take a video in case of hyperactive gag reflex; it can capture all regions of the oral cavity and pharynx in good focus because of a deep depth of field; it can prevent blurring of the image with a sufficiently high shutter speed; it is lightweight; and it facilitates photography without assistance.
We have succeeded in commercializing this system, and it will be available on the market in winter of 2017. We hope that this system will be widely used as a device which can support daily medical practice in various fields of healthcare.