Combined Coaxial Optical Coherence Tomography System to Image the Retina and Choroidal Structures and Estimate Tissue Reflectivity in Healthy and Diseased Retinas

Histology studies have shown that many disorders of the retina and choroid such as age-related macular degeneration is associated with a build up abnormal deposits, in the retina or subretinal space. Being able to detect subtle changes in retina and choroidal structure is crucial for better understanding and monitoring of this potentially blinding condition. This study aims to commercially available Spectralis® OCT-system with a central wavelength of 880nm explore the ability of a confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscope (cSLO) for OCT imaging utilising a modified by the addition of a longer wavelength OCT (1075nm , a wavelength deployed on other commercially available OCT scanners). Other commercially available OCT scanners used longer wavelengths to allow deeper penetration and enhanced visualisation of subretinal tissue but less inner retinal detail. Combing both wavelengths could have the advantage of allowing optimum viualisation of inner and subretinal structures. The ability of the systems to acquire repeatable and good quality images of retinal and choroidal structural detail at matching location and compare the results from the two instruments will be evaluated. In addition processing of the images reflectivity with two different wavelength should give us insight into the nature of any abnormal material.