OCT imaging technology can improve the diagnosis and treatment of glaucoma

To improve the diagnosis and treatment of glaucoma, researchers from the Indiana University School of Optometry developed a non-invasive fundus examination to visualize and count individual cells in the eye.

Zhou Lin Liu, the first author of the study and research assistant at the Donal T. Miller Laboratory, described the work as a light microscopy with extremely high resolution and sensitivity . She pointed out that the optical microscope allows ophthalmic caregivers to directly count retinal ganglion cells (cells that die from glaucoma), allowing them to assess glaucoma damage in advance .

Glaucoma causes blindness in the brain by destroying cells in the retina, which acts to convert light into electrical impulses and deliver it to the brain.

Miller, a professor at the University of Indiana's School of Optometry, said: "These cells are very small, highly translucent, and have only a weak reflex function. This prevents clinical tools from looking at the degree of damage to the cells by constructing sufficiently clear images . If the ophthalmologist can Early detection of this injury, when it affects a single cell, can significantly improve the diagnosis and treatment of glaucoma and other retinal diseases. "

The research team's approach improves the performance of optical coherence tomography (OCT). OCT is the primary method for diagnosing ophthalmic diseases. Miller's labs use images with higher resolution and higher contrast by using adaptive optics . The technology was originally developed for the field of astronomy to eliminate the effects of atmospheric blur in telescope images.

Liu said: "We have developed a method to provide retinal biopsy a new idea due to the use of optics, so it is non-invasive and allows repeated evaluation of the same cell by re-adjusting the instrument's focal length, we can get the retina. Clear images of cells at any depth, from cells on the cell surface to cells at the bottom of the retina, while maintaining the proper functioning of the retina."

Miller and his researchers are working to make this new method sensitive to the physiological activities of cells. He said: "If we can achieve this goal, we will open up new and previously unimaginable methods to map images related to retinal neural circuit function and detect the earliest changes in cells associated with disease onset."