A NEW HOLOGRAPHIC 3D CAMERA FOR FUNDUS IMAGING

A NEW HOLOGRAPHIC D CAMERA FOR FUNDUS IMAGING Abstract In the United States retinal disease is the most common cause of visual impairment with age related macular degeneration AMD and diabetic retinopathy DR being the most common retinal diseases For each of the above conditions high resolution and three dimensional D imaging of the retina retinal vasculature choroid and or retinal pigment epithelium RPE is critical for diagnosis and research into the disease as well as for monitoring response to treatment Pathology to any of these structures can lead to vision loss since the health and function of the retina is dependent upon proper functioning of all of these components An inexpensive and simple method to image all of these fundus structures at high resolution and in three dimensions would dramatically improve patient care and medical research The goal of this project is to apply Fresnel Incoherent Correlation Holography FINCH to human fundus imaging FINCH is a self referenced low coherence holographic technique that can create super resolved D holographic images from any light source including fluorescent or reflected light from the human eye fundus A FINCH based fundus imaging system would improve resolution and D imaging capability of fundus photography and all types of fluorescence angiography for retinal vasculature while also potentially providing depth and thickness maps of retinal layers in a mode similar to Optical Coherence Tomography All this could be done in a single instrument with operational modes identical to fluorescence angiography and fundus photography For this Phase I research program the well understood design principles of FINCH will be used to adapt a standard commercial fundus camera for FINCH imaging The prototype FINCH fundus camera will be used to image lifelike eye tissue phantoms as well as human subjects in order to establish its efficacy in fundus imaging The long term goal of this research is the construction of inexpensive turn key FINCH camera units specially designed to interface with commercial fundus cameras to enable greater availability of high resolution D fundus imaging in clinical care and medical research Project Narrative High resolution three dimensional fast imaging of the human retina and ocular fundus would improve diagnostic and treatment capabilities in the practice of ophthalmology as well as basic eye research The proposed project will develop an additional holographic camera as an add on to existing fundus photography and fluorescence angiography imaging systems transforming them from low resolution D systems into very high resolution imaging systems with D vision that can better see the relationships between all the structures in the eye all without changing the operation of the fundus imaging system The basis for the project resides on this laboratory s successful development over the years of a simple fluorescence microscope based upon a laser less holographic principle that effortlessly creates D super resolution images