Optical coherence tomography - from research to routine medical diagnostics

Abstract

Despite being a unique solution for the technical problems of imaging into the eye, it took more than 15 years to establish OCT as a routine diagnostic tool in ophthalmology. The presentation will highlight the technical and clinical milestones that drove this development. One of the technical milestones was the transition from time-domain OCT to spectral-domain OCT that enabled substantially more sensitive detection and therefore faster imaging. It makes the acquisition of large 3D volumes within the eye and real-time visualization, e.g. for surgical procedures, possible. The research in OCT for ophthalmology continues to be a highly active field with regard to new technical developments and clinical applications. The introduction of swept-source OCT could be another technology shift leading to even higher imaging speeds. But new technologies do not automatically substitute old ones. The clinical value as the ultimate driver of adoption depends on a number of factors that will be discussed.