Analyzing birefringence in the retinal nerve fiber layer of diabetic patients using polarization sensitive OCT

Sylvia Desissaire; Andreas Pollreisz; Felix Datlinger; Dorottya Hajdu; Stefan Steiner; Clemens Vass; Florian Schwarzhans; Michael Pircher; Ursula Schmidt-Erfurth; Christoph K. Hitzenberger

doi:10.1117/12.2544701

19 February 2020 Analyzing birefringence in the retinal nerve fiber layer of diabetic patients using polarization sensitive OCT

Sylvia Desissaire, Andreas Pollreisz, Felix Datlinger, Dorottya Hajdu, Stefan Steiner, Clemens Vass, Florian Schwarzhans, Michael Pircher, Ursula Schmidt-Erfurth, Christoph K. Hitzenberger

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 11218, Ophthalmic Technologies XXX; 112181G (2020) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2544701
Event: SPIE BiOS, 2020, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disease characterized by elevated levels of blood glucose. Over time, it can lead to serious damages in the body. In the eyes, diabetic retinopathy (DR), the most common microvascular complication of diabetes, is a major cause of blindness. OCT can be used to provide high resolution images of the damages in the retina and follow their evolution over time. It is however still unclear which of the vascular or neurologic changes happen first in the development of the disease. In this work, we investigate the birefringence of the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) of diabetic patients (with different stage of DR or no DR) and compare these results to healthy subject’s data. We use a PS-OCT system with an integrated retinal tracker for imaging (center wavelength of 860 nm, A-scan rate of 70 kHz). For each eye imaged, a raster scan centered on the optic nerve head (ONH) and a circular scan around the ONH (radius: 1.5mm) are taken. Considering only areas with a RNFL thickness >100 μm, birefringence values are calculated from an averaged circular tomogram for each eye. We observe a statistically significant reduced birefringence of the RNFL in the diabetic patients compared to the healthy volunteers.

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Sylvia Desissaire, Andreas Pollreisz, Felix Datlinger, Dorottya Hajdu, Stefan Steiner, Clemens Vass, Florian Schwarzhans, Michael Pircher, Ursula Schmidt-Erfurth, and Christoph K. Hitzenberger "Analyzing birefringence in the retinal nerve fiber layer of diabetic patients using polarization sensitive OCT", Proc. SPIE 11218, Ophthalmic Technologies XXX, 112181G (19 February 2020); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2544701

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