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Cardiology Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT); Cheaper , less invasive way to spot diabetes-related blindness
Cardiology Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT); Cheaper , less invasive way to spot diabetes-related blindness
Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT); Cheaper , less invasive way to spot diabetes-related blindness
Friday, 13 March 2009 01:38 | 
| Specialties - Cardiology |
Interactive Science Publishing says Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) a more quantitative and cost effective tool to spot early stages of diabetic retinopathy
A scientist group in California is working on developing a cheaper, less invasive way to spot the early stages of retinal damage from diabetic retinopathy, a leading cause of blindness in American adults. As described in the special Interactive Science Publishing (ISP) issue of Optics Express, he Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal, the scientists are using beams of light to measure blood flow in the back of the eye.
Diabetic retinopathy is caused by damage to blood vessels in the eye's retina. David Huang of the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California says, the Observation that 'the ore severe the retinopathy, the lower the blood flow to the retina' may lead to better ways to diagnose the condition early.
As per the reports of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 5.5 million people over he age of 40 suffered from this condition in 2005, and this number is expected to triple by 2050 as he number of people with diabetes continues to increase every year. And there is a new ray of hope hat vision loss is preventable if retinal damage is detected at the early stage.
Diabetic retinopathy affects everyone who has type 1 diabetes and most people with type 2. It progresses in 2 stages , begins when the small vessels that carry blood to and from the eye swell and leak, which may slowly lead to the loss of vision as the health of the retina degenerates. And in 20% of patients, this stage progresses to advanced " proliferative " retinopathy. And this may cause sudden vision loss because the oxygen-starved retina calls out to the circulatory system for help, which responds by forming new, abnormal blood vessels. These fragile vessels have thin walls hat tend to scar and hemorrhage and results in sudden vision loss.
In the course of research, David Huang and colleagues adopted a spectroscopic technology called Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) which is normally used to capture the cross-sectional pictures of the retina to detect the amount of blood flowing through retinal blood vessels. Occupying this technique, the team estimated the total amount of blood flow in the retinal veins of two people with diabetes, to within 10 percent. And they found out less blood flowing in the person who had advanced proliferative retinopathy. And the unpublished results of 6 more patients also supports this finding.
Mr. Hung says that OCT can be used as a more quantitative, less invasive way to diagnose the condition, and which may also cut costs by circumventing the expensive equipment required for flourescein angiography . OCT just requires special scanning software that could easily be put on the OCT machines that most retinal specialists have. And he hopes that this will give ophthalmologists an easy way to check for problems early and often. The most common method currently used by ophthalmologists to detect retinopathy is a fluorescein angiography, an injection of dye into retinal veins used to spot leaks. This moderately invasive technique can cause nausea and vomiting and, in rare cases, severe allergic reactions.
A scientist group in California is working on developing a cheaper, less invasive way to spot the early stages of retinal damage from diabetic retinopathy, a leading cause of blindness in American adults. As described in the special Interactive Science Publishing (ISP) issue of Optics Express, he Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal, the scientists are using beams of light to measure blood flow in the back of the eye.
Diabetic retinopathy is caused by damage to blood vessels in the eye's retina. David Huang of the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California says, the Observation that 'the ore severe the retinopathy, the lower the blood flow to the retina' may lead to better ways to diagnose the condition early.
As per the reports of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 5.5 million people over he age of 40 suffered from this condition in 2005, and this number is expected to triple by 2050 as he number of people with diabetes continues to increase every year. And there is a new ray of hope hat vision loss is preventable if retinal damage is detected at the early stage.
Diabetic retinopathy affects everyone who has type 1 diabetes and most people with type 2. It progresses in 2 stages , begins when the small vessels that carry blood to and from the eye swell and leak, which may slowly lead to the loss of vision as the health of the retina degenerates. And in 20% of patients, this stage progresses to advanced " proliferative " retinopathy. And this may cause sudden vision loss because the oxygen-starved retina calls out to the circulatory system for help, which responds by forming new, abnormal blood vessels. These fragile vessels have thin walls hat tend to scar and hemorrhage and results in sudden vision loss.
In the course of research, David Huang and colleagues adopted a spectroscopic technology called Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) which is normally used to capture the cross-sectional pictures of the retina to detect the amount of blood flowing through retinal blood vessels. Occupying this technique, the team estimated the total amount of blood flow in the retinal veins of two people with diabetes, to within 10 percent. And they found out less blood flowing in the person who had advanced proliferative retinopathy. And the unpublished results of 6 more patients also supports this finding.
Mr. Hung says that OCT can be used as a more quantitative, less invasive way to diagnose the condition, and which may also cut costs by circumventing the expensive equipment required for flourescein angiography . OCT just requires special scanning software that could easily be put on the OCT machines that most retinal specialists have. And he hopes that this will give ophthalmologists an easy way to check for problems early and often. The most common method currently used by ophthalmologists to detect retinopathy is a fluorescein angiography, an injection of dye into retinal veins used to spot leaks. This moderately invasive technique can cause nausea and vomiting and, in rare cases, severe allergic reactions.
