You can use HTTP's etags and last modified dates to ensure that you're not sending the browser data it already has cached.
<?php
$last_modified_time = filemtime($file);
$etag = md5_file($file);
header("Last-Modified: ".gmdate("D, d M Y H:i:s", $last_modified_time)." GMT");
header("Etag: $etag");
if (@strtotime($_SERVER['HTTP_IF_MODIFIED_SINCE']) == $last_modified_time ||
trim($_SERVER['HTTP_IF_NONE_MATCH']) == $etag) {
header("HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified");
exit;
}
?>