Abstract
Abstract: :
Purpose: To investigate the clinical feasibility of ultrahigh resolution optical coherence tomography (OCT) to visualize intraretinal morphology of retinal pathology for early ophthalmic diagnosis. Methods: A compact third generation ultrahigh resolution ophthalmic optical coherence tomography (OCT) system has been developed and used in a clinical setting for the first time. Being based on state of the art femtosecond laser technology, it achieves significantly improved axial resolution of retinal OCT imaging. Preliminary studies on selected patients with glaucoma and macular disease have been conducted to qualitatively evaluate the potential of this technique for enhanced visualization of retinal pathologies. Results: Axial resolution of 3 µm has been achieved in eyes of patients with retinal pathologies, nearly two orders of magnitude better than conventional ophthalmic ultrasound. This resolution enables unprecedented visualization of the retinal nerve fiber layer as well as other intraretinal layers, e.g. the ganglion cell layer, that might significantly improve early diagnosis. Patients have been documented and correlated with standard ophthalmic diagnostic techniques and have been compared to OCT images taken with standard resolution (10-15 µm) commercial unit (OCT II, ZEISS Humphrey). Clinical feasibility of ultrahigh resolution ophthalmic OCT for early diagnosis of ocular diseases is discussed. Conclusion: Ultrahigh resolution ophthalmic OCT has the potential to enhance the sensitivity and specificity for early diagnosis of a variety of ocular diseases, e.g. glaucoma, diabetic macular edema or age-related macular degeneration, that are worldwide leading causes for blindness. Due to increased accuracy it might enable to detect early intraretinal changes in order to diagnose retinal disease in its early stages, when treatment is most effective and irreversible damage can be prevented or delayed.
Keywords: 432 imaging methods (CT, FA, ICG, MRI, OCT, RTA, SLO, ultrasound) • 484 nerve fiber layer • 554 retina