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Measurements of retinal oxygen metabolic response in the eye

Supercontinuum OCT laser is used to measure retinal oxygen metabolic response in the eye.

Blue eye

Using the SuperK EXTREME OCT supercontinuum laser from NKT Photonics, a research team from Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin has built a visible-light optical coherence tomography imaging system capable of measuring retinal oxygen metabolic rate (rMRO2) noninvasively in rat eyes. Being able to quantify oxygen metabolism noninvasively is important for diagnostics and investigation of a range of eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and glaucoma.

The ability to quantitatively measure oxygen metabolism will further expand the applications of supercontinuum-powered OCT. Vis-OCT provides a convenient approach that allows both blood flow and sO2 quantification with one noninvasive setup, which would otherwise either be invasive or require different imaging systems.

Read more in their Nature paper: Visible light optical coherence tomography measures retinal oxygen metabolic response to systemic oxygenation.

References

Ji Yi1, Wenzhong Liu1, Siyu Chen1, Vadim Backman1, Nader Sheibani2, Christine M. Sorenson2, Amani A. Fawzi3, Robert A. Linsenmeier1,3,4 and Hao F. Zhang1,3

1 Department of Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University
2 McPherson Eye Research Institute, University of Wisconsin
3 Department of Ophthalmology, Northwestern University
4 Department of Neurobiology, Northwestern University