Research Project
2165288
DESCRIPTION (Adapted from applicant's abstract): The careful observation of the optic nerve head is known to be one of the best ways of diagnosing and monitoring glaucoma. Recently, several instruments have been developed to measure optic nerve head topography to quantify glaucomatous damage. Among these instruments is LDT's confocal scanning laser tomography TopSS. Although these instruments are highly reproducible, there are two major issues that need to be solved before optic nerve topographers will be widely accepted for glaucoma management; first, the current instruments need the operator to outline the optic disc margin; second, the retinal surface is used as reference plane, although its topography might be altered during the progression of glaucoma. This causes inter-operator variability or incorrect measurements. In the proposed research the existing TopSS instrument is modified to obtain information from multiply scattered light of deeper retinal layers simultaneously and in addition to surface topography. This will allow the investigator to use the outline and height of the scleral rim as a stable reference for disc margin and height values. The longterm goal of this research is to develop a rapid, objective and fully automated test for glaucomatous optic nerve damage. Additionally, the new method might be valuable for the detection of retinal diseases.
