Abstract
Retinal diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), are the leading cause of blindness in the elderly population. Since no known cures are currently present, it is crucial to diagnose the condition in its early stages so that disease progression is monitored. Recent advances show that the mechanical elasticity of the posterior eye changes with the onset of AMD. In this work, we present a quantitative method of mapping the mechanical elasticity of the posterior eye using confocal shear wave acoustic radiation force optical coherence elastography (SW-ARF-OCE). This technique has been developed and validated with both an ex-vivo porcine tissue model and a customized in-vivo rabbit model, which both showed the quantified elasticity variations between different layers. This study verifies the feasibility of using this technology for the quantification and diagnosis of retinal diseases from the in-vivo posterior eye.
Highlights
A GE-RELATED macular degeneration (AMD) is a progressive disease of the retina and is the leading cause of severe vision loss in the western population over 50 years of age [1]
A customized 50 kHz spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) system with a central wavelength of 890 nm and bandwidth of 144 nm is used for the detection of tissue structure and response to stimulation
In order to test the confocal excitation and detection setup, imaging was first performed on an ex-vivo porcine retina using the same OCT system
Summary
A GE-RELATED macular degeneration (AMD) is a progressive disease of the retina and is the leading cause of severe vision loss in the western population over 50 years of age [1]. AMD most often induces drusen formation in the dry form, and neovascularization in wet AMD. Drusen is present in more than half of the population over 70 years of age and often acts as an early sign of AMD [2]. Q contributed to this work and are treated as cofirst authors.) (Corresponding authors: Zhongping Chen and Qifa Zhou.)
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