Modified optical coherence tomography (OCT) has provided images of the full internal structure of the eye, according to researchers at the Ophthalmic Biophysics Center at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in the U.S. The advance promises to accelerate the development of an effective treatment for presbyopia, and may also be useful for surgeons in cataract removal, in the assessment of glaucoma treatments and in understanding the progression of short-sightedness in children.
“OCT is widely used in clinical practice as a diagnostic tool to image the retina and the cornea,” said Dr. Marco Ruggeri, Research Assistant Professor at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute. “The technology we’ve developed extends the capabilities of standard OCT implementations by providing a more comprehensive view of the eye that includes the cornea, retina, anterior chamber, the crystalline lens and the ciliary body and muscle.
“Although it is accepted that changes in the optical and mechanical properties of the crystalline lens are central to the onset of presbyopia, little is known about the role of the ciliary muscle and how it may or may not affect the loss of accommodation with age,” he said.
“Studying the dynamic changes of the crystalline lens shape and the ciliary muscle geometry during accommodation, and with age, will advance the knowledge of the mechanism of presbyopia and it will also serve as a clinical tool to evaluate the efficacy of procedures aimed to restore accommodation, such as accommodative intraocular lenses and lens refilling techniques.”
OCT is widely used in clinical practice as a diagnostic tool to image the retina and the cornea…
Bascom Palmer Eye Institute is participating in the Accommodating Gel project, a collaborative effort by researchers in Australia, Finland, India and U.S., being undertaken through the Vision Cooperative Research Centre (Vision CRC). The aim is to develop a synthetic gel to replace the old, hardened lens of the presbyopic eye and restore accommodation. The Accommodating Gel technology is now being developed by Adventus Technology Inc, a participant in Vision CRC.
“By enabling fast and accurate measurements of intraocular distances, such as axial eye length and anterior chamber depth, and ocular surface curvatures, the proposed instrumentation may represent an effective tool for precisely determining the power of intraocular lens implants used in cataract surgery,” said Dr. Ruggeri.
“The instrumentation could also be employed as a tool to assess the anatomical configuration changes of the ciliary body and irido-corneal angle associated with glaucoma and glaucoma treatments.”
The research, which is supported through a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant in the U.S., was recognised earlier this year at BiOS (The Biomedical Optics conference of SPIE), the world’s largest biomedical optics conference, when Dr. Ruggeri won the Pascal Rol Award, which recognises significant contributions to the field of ophthalmic technologies.
“I am particularly proud to receive the prestigious Pascal Rol award and am honoured to be distinguished by an independent panel of experts in ophthalmic technologies, as it recognises our continuous effort at the Ophthalmic Biophysics Center at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute,” said Dr. Ruggeri.
Professor Arthur Ho of the Brien Holden Vision Institute and Vision CRC said Dr. Ruggeri’s work will advance current understandings of presbyopia and accelerate the Accommodating Gel project to restore near vision in presbyopes. “What Dr. Ruggeri and the group at Bascom Palmer has provided is an enormously powerful tool – an ability to see the working mechanics of the entire accommodation system in real life,” he said.
