Optical Coherence Tomography…
Ultra-Modern Eyecare
Principal Optometrist Mrs Hassan is among the first specialists in West Yorkshire to utilize the innovative, exciting technology of OCT.
“Mrs. Smith, your retina biopsy is complete. After examining a slice of your inner eye under a high-powered microscope, we are able to examine your eye & general health like never before…and we never even touched your eye!”
Does this statement sound space-aged? Welcome to the new world of high-tech medicine, where breakthroughs in ophthalmic imaging make the retina’s inner workings transparent to a degree unimaginable even a year ago.
It’s called Optical Coherence Tomography, “OCT” for short. OCT is a new, non-invasive technology used for imaging the retina, the multi-layered sensory tissue lining the back of the eye. OCT, the first instrument to allow us to see cross-sectional images of the retina, is revolutionizing the early detection and treatment of eye conditions such as macular holes, age related macular degeneration, pre-retinal membranes, macular swelling and even nerve damage that you get in glaucoma.
Similar to CT scans of internal organs, OCT uses the optical backscattering of light to rapidly scan the eye and describe a pixel representation of the anatomic layers within the retina. Each of these ten important layers can be differentiated and their thickness can be measured. Mrs Hassan, knowing the normal thickness of a healthy retinal layer, can then distinguish a multitude of retinal diseases and conditions.
In 2007, OCT was named one of the top 10 medical innovations expected to improve healthcare.
As Mrs Hassan has close links with Clayton hospital, she can email consultants OCT scans and reports straight away for a faster, efficient referral. For certain conditions, such as age-related macular degeneration and cystoid macular oedema, the 45 second OCT procedure is able to reduce or eliminate the need for fluorescein angiography for some patients.
Having the most modern equipment available reflects Mrs Hassan’s enormous efforts to obtain her objective of delivering highly efficient, ultra-modern eye health examinations.