Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects

Eye doctors use lenses to look inside the back of the eye, at the retina, to search for diseasescausing vision problems. With these lenses, they can only see the surface of the retina. Also,what they see is rarely recorded. Eye-witness testimony of the eye doctor is how clinicaldiagnosis is done at this time. A new technology called OCT can show pictures of the retinabelow the surface. These pictures are recorded first and then analyzed by the eye doctor.Since these devices only see a small area of the retina at a time, eye doctors prefer the oldway of looking through the retina directly using lenses.We propose to develop a new OCT scanner that can record a picture of the full retina, thesame or better than the area seen with lenses directly, so doctors dont miss anything. At thesame time, OCT pictures show what's below the surface, like blood vessels. Since the retinapictures are recorded, these can be interpreted and discussed by more than one doctor, andevent sent to another clinic for more analysis and expert opinion.We propose to develop computer programs that use equations to make measurements fromthese pictures. So not only can the doctor see below the retina over a wide area, they canalso get measurements that let them decide if a region inside the retina is healthy or if there issome problem such as damaged cells in the retina, poor or damaged blood supply, or anyother damage.The OCTSurfer technology that we propose has the potential to make it easy for doctors tofind diseases by making detailed and minute measurements that are difficult to make visually.This will lower the chances of errors, like when something is judged to be a problem when itisnt, or when a problem is missed. People living far from cities can benefit by sending theirimages to a eye doctor in a city clinic. Optometrists could use OCTSurfer to screen fordisease and refer people to eye specialists for proper diagnosis.