This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
OCT has made me a better doctor
In our careers, we will encounter many technological advances in diagnostic equipment, medicines and surgical techniques, but a few stand out as changing the way we practice every day. The transition to small incision and eventually clear corneal cataract surgery was for me a dramatic improvement about 15 years ago. Premium implants raised to a new level the benefits we can provide a patient during cataract surgery. In the diagnostic arena, I think ocular coherence tomography has been the most impressive advancement during my career.
Using a scanning laser, OCT can define microscopic anatomy in the retina and other ocular tissues, providing 3-D information that was previously unavailable. This gives us the ability to diagnose many conditions such as epiretinal membranes and central serous retinopathy with high confidence and with a clear image we can show patients. Moreover, it has actually improved my skills as an examiner, allowing me to correlate my exam findings with an objective 3-D view that not only confirms my findings, but helps me understand better how to interpret visual clues in the retina.
For many smaller practices the cost of obtaining an OCT can be somewhat prohibitive. Nonetheless, I cannot imagine practicing today without it. Thankfully, there are now companies that offer traveling OCT machines for occasional use and, in most cities, there is a machine in at least one practice, so this technology should be available to most.
It is exciting to see further developments in retinal imagining refining our ability to diagnose blinding diseases at a cellular level, and I look forward to using even newer techniques as they become available.