High-speed imaging of retinal pathology using ultrahigh-resolution spectral/Fourier domain optical coherence tomography in the ophthalmology clinic

An ultrahigh resolution spectral domain optical coherence tomography (OCT) system capable of performing high speed imaging in the ophthalmology clinic has been developed. An OCT system using spectral/Fourier domain enables high speed imaging rates of up to 25,000 axial scans (A-scan) per second. Using a low threshold femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser light source, which can generate bandwidths of ~125 nm at 800 nm, cross-sectional imaging of the retina with ~3 μm axial resolution is possible. High speed imaging has been performed in the ophthalmology clinic on patients with various retinal pathologies using the ultrahigh resolution spectral domain OCT system. High pixel density OCT images containing 1024 pixels and 2048 transverse lines (A-scans) can be acquired in 0.08 seconds, which represents a ~100 fold improvement in imaging speed over previously reported time-domain ultrahigh resolution OCT systems. High speed imaging also enables three dimensional scanning and mapping of intraretinal architectural morphology with unprecedented resolution. High speed ultrahigh resolution OCT is a powerful tool for visualizing retinal pathologies, especially those involving the details of the photoreceptor segments; it will enable three-dimensional retinal imaging and the rendering of image information from volumetric data, and it has the potential to improve the early diagnosis of retinal diseases.