Ophtalmic device for eye structures examination with ultrahigh resolution
Non-contact cell-resolution imaging of the whole eye is the Holy Grail of ophthalmic diagnosis. If achieved and wide-spread, it can allow detection of diseases at the very earliest stages, resulting in a prominent positive effect both on society through improving the ocular health in the population, and on economy through reducing the number of costly surgical interventions at the late disease stages and through keeping the population economically active. Several highresolution eye imaging instruments reached the market, however they failed to become wide-spread due to their great complexity, high price (Adaptive optics systems) and not patient-friendly imaging procedure, for example, requiring contact with the eye during examination (Confocal microscopy systems). In a course of ERC HELMHOLTZ project, we for the first time we applied Full-field Optical Coherence Tomography (FFOCT) technology to ophthalmology and built two instruments for corneal and retinal imaging. We demonstrated the unique abilities of FFOCT technology to visualize live retina and cornea of the eye with cell-resolution, in a non-contact way, using a simple optical design without complex adaptive optics. In ODYSSEUS we propose to develop a single combined FFOCT instrument for both corneal and retinal examination. The instrument will be compact, cost-effective, adapted for use in clinical environment and will demonstrate the improved imaging performance, meeting the desires of our partners in the hospital. The developed technology will be transferred to our partners in Vision Institute and the Hospital for clinical studies in patients. In addition, we have filled the first patent on ophthalmic FFOCT and, once the prototype is validated, we plan to create a start-up, specializing in manufacturing and sales of FFOCT-based diagnostic devices for ophthalmology.