WASHINGTON: MIT researchers have developed a new hand-held device that scans a patient’s entire retina in seconds to detect a host of retinal diseases including diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and macular degeneration.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developed the new instrument which is the first to combine cutting-edge technologies such as ultrahigh-speed 3-D imaging, a tiny micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) mirror for scanning, and a technique to correct for unintentional movement by the patient.
These innovations, researchers said, would allow collection of comprehensive data with just one measurement.
Normally, to diagnose retinal diseases, an ophthalmologist must examine the patient in his or her office, typically with table-top instruments.
The MIT group, in collaboration with the University of Erlangen and Praevium/Thorlabs, has developed a portable instrument that can be taken outside a specialist’s office.
The instrument uses a technique called optical coherence tomography (OCT), which the MIT group and collaborators helped pioneer in the early 1990s.
The technology sends beams of infrared light into the eye and onto the retina. Echoes of this light return to the instrument, which uses interferometry to measures changes in the time delay and magnitude of the returning light echoes, revealing the cross sectional tissue structure of the retina – similar to radar or ultrasound imaging.-PTI
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