Abstract
Purpose :
Safe and efficacious use of laser indirect ophthalmoscope (LIO) in retinal laser therapy is challenging and requires prolonged training. To ease the training and improve safety we propose an Augmented Reality (AR) guidance system with a custom-built indirect-ophthalmoscope-integrated AR headset to assist the laser targeting tasks.
Methods :
We developed an AR guidance system using the Microsoft HoloLens 2 and Raspberry Pi with a camera sensor for feature matching. We integrated an indirect ophthalmoscope into an AR headset to overlay AR holograms of magnified retinal landmarks on the retinal images using matching feature points. Employing thresholding-based image processing, we detected the laser-targeting locations and provided images (e.g., target sign or color) and text guidance in AR on the regions that needed to be treated or avoided.
Results :
A total of 14 non-experts participated in the user study for the simulation of retinal laser therapy on a 6x retina phantom model (25.4±5.32 years, 78.6% male). The AR guidance helped users improve their mean laser targeting accuracy from 7.13mm±4.22mm to 5.42mm±3.06mm p=0.0057. The total completion time in targeting five simulated points on retinal images increased from 179.93s±100.19s to 377.57s±199.08s. Our survey results show that users agreed that AR guidance was helpful in improving laser targeting accuracy (64.3%; mean score, 3.86; 95% CI, 0.40).
Conclusions :
The overlay of magnified retinal landmarks and guidance on laser detection demonstrated the improvements in laser targeting tasks on non-expert users. We plan to conduct further expert (e.g., retina specialists) user studies and work on improving the prototype and robustness of the image registration. The AR-guided LIO might help improve accuracy and safety and make new workforce training easier.
This abstract was presented at the 2024 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, WA, May 5-9, 2024.