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Hardware, software improvements advance OCT capabilities
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WAIKOLOA, Hawaii — Hardware improvements that increase scanning speed with more imaging modalities and software enhancements that allow for new scanning protocols are features rounding out the OCT space in 2016, according to a speaker here.
“Bottom line is that there are a lot of new things in OCT technology. We haven’t really hit the ceiling,” Jay S. Duker, MD, told colleagues at Retina 2016.
Jay S. Duker
For SD-OCT, one trend is going to be multiple scanning speeds contained in a single OCT unit, Duker said.
Scanning speed in spectrometer-based systems is dependent on the light sources – the cameras and the electronics, Duker said, “so the more money you want to spend on that, the faster you can go.”
Another hardware upgrade is the integration of anterior segment scanning with posterior segment machines.
“Anterior segment scanning used to be separate, and now it’s together in one box,” Duker said. The need to buy a separate anterior segment OCT is “a thing of the past.”
Finally, mechanical tracking will be available on all instruments, Duker said.
For swept source, speed is dependent on the laser. “There’s potential to go 400,000 A-scans per second with swept source, if you can afford the laser,” Duker said.
Faster speed means shorter scan times, more retinal coverage, denser pixels and more oversampling, and the ability to perform OCT angiography. However, faster speed also means worse signal-to-noise ratio and worse motion artifact.
“With respect to the software, we can do longer scans and better quality scans now,” Duker said.
Newer software capabilities include longer line scans, better quality cube scans, en face analysis and ganglion cell analysis, as well as the ability to reduce motion artifact. However, longer scans yield a worse aspect ratio.
With regard to longer scans from a retina specialist’s perspective, Duker said, “What we really care about is what’s going on in the fovea. When you have a long scan, because of the aspect ratio, you’re losing detail in the fovea. You really can’t see the outer retina very well to see what’s going on.”
“OCT is now such an integral part of what we do,” Duker said. “We’re probably not at the end; we’re probably not even at the middle of OCT technology. It’s going to keep moving forward.”– by Patricia Nale, ELS
Reference:
Duker JS. Update in spectral domain OCT for 2016: What’s coming. Presented at: Hawaiian Eye; Jan. 16-23, 2016; Waikoloa, Hawaii.
Disclosure: Duker reports he is a consultant for and receives research support from Carl Zeiss Meditec and Optovue.