Wisconsin Patent of the Month – July 2022
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an imaging technique that allows doctors to take a look at the back of your eye. Insight into the topography of your retina, including variation in retinal thickness or changes over time, can be used to diagnose and manage diseases like diabetes-related retinopathy and glaucoma. Unfortunately, reading these images is largely left up to the clinician who may make errors. Retinal topography varies person by person. In addition to this variability, clinicians can run into ambiguous findings of neuropathies that have nothing to do with glaucoma but present similarly, leading to false positives and false negatives.
EyeKor, LLC (DBA MERIT CRO) has developed an automated analysis technique to read these retinal scans with fewer errors. The system analyzes the OCT images, focusing on the topography of the retinal layers across multiple images. The analysis, and any subsequent diagnoses, are made based on the reflectivity profiles of various vitreous, retinal, and choroidal layers of the retina. Calculating the patient’s retinal layer reflectivity profile is done by averaging the pixel intensity from above and below the designated retinal layer to create a local reflectivity profile and then calculating the best fit of the local reflectivity profile against each column of the OCT image. This can then identify the pixel location of the designated retinal layer across the image and graphically identifies the retinal layer on the OCT image. The best fit is calculated using complex, cross correlation algorithms.
EyeKor, experts in ophthalmology, has been developing customer-centric imaging CRO with the intention of creating data management and analysis services for ophthalmic clinicians. From software to manage clinical trials to improved analytic techniques, their solutions are meant to improve the industry’s ability to provide quality care.
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