Spontaneous retinal detachments occur in approximately 25,000 Americans annually. In many of these cases invasive surgery is required to reattach the retina and halt a progression of the detachment which would otherwise lead to blindness of the affected eye. Unfortunately, this surgery is both invasive and expensive with an average cost of roughly $7,000 per procedure for scleral buckling and $2,000 per procedure for pneumatic retinopexy. This proposal describes a new technique for the non-invasive repair of retinal detachments. The proposed technique would move the retina into contact with the retinal pigment epithelium using a new technique, ARM, and then form a long term adhesion between these tissues using a well known technique, laser photocoagulation. ARM will be tested in a tissue mimicking phantom, a tissue mimicking phantom including excised porcine retinal tissue and excised porcine eyes. For each experiment the amount of time required to place the retina in contact with the RPE will be recorded. Theoretical analysis will be performed to estimate temperature increases which can be expected for various system configurations. Temperature increases will be correlated with appropriate application times to estimate risk of thermal injury.
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