Recent advances in ophthalmic imaging have revolutionized the ability of clinicians to visualize and understand a wide variety of diseases of the eye. Although these advanced diagnostic instruments indirectly indicate a course of treatment, they are generally not directly coupled to a particular therapy. We propose to design, develop, and construct an innovative diagnostic instrument, the core elements of which will be integral to the delivery of a new treatment modality. The diagnostic instrument will use scanning laser ophthalmoscopy (SLO) at its core, with unique and necessary enhancements of adaptive optics and retinal tracking used to increase imaging performance and clinical utility. The instrument will be used to precisely deliver laser pulses for several different potential therapeutic applications. By use of ultrashort laser pulses of femtosecond or picosecond duration, microsurgical damage can be created at spatially-confined locations, without collateral damage to critical adjacent layers, and with lower energies than other laser surgery. The system will be constructed at Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) and the imaging performance will be evaluated there on artificial targets and on a limited number of human subjects. The system will then be transported to the laser laboratory (AFRIJHEDO) at Brooks AFB for initial testing in an appropriate animal model. The PSI investigators will be assisted by experts in the field of adaptive optics for retinal imaging, clinical ophthalmology, and ultrashort pulse laser generation and delivery. The unique use of an advanced, high-resolution imaging system for both imaging and delivery of laser pulses for specific therapies constitutes the direct, complete, and efficient integration of detection and treatment modalities.
| Bigelow, Chad E; Iftimia, Nicusor V; Ferguson, R Daniel et al. (2007) Compact multimodal adaptive-optics spectral-domain optical coherence tomography instrument for retinal imaging. J Opt Soc Am A Opt Image Sci Vis 24:1327-36 |
