Surgery – Diagnostic testing – Detecting nuclear – electromagnetic – or ultrasonic radiation
Patent
1997-05-30
1998-11-03
Smith, Ruth S.
Surgery
Diagnostic testing
Detecting nuclear, electromagnetic, or ultrasonic radiation
600504, 600558, 351221, 351246, A61B 502
Patent
active
058301470
ABSTRACT:
A laser source attached to an ophthalmic observation instrument, such as a fundus camera, projects a spot, and a light collector is positioned in the image field of the instrument over the spot to collect return light scattered from a homogeneous tissue bed in the image field. The collected light is directed onto a photomultiplier and digitized at a sampling rate above several kHz to provide a continuous data stream which is fed to a process/control module that operates to automatically define a number n of sample intervals, select a subset of the sample intervals for analysis, transform the selected intervals, and evaluate the shape of the transformed sample intervals. The process/control module may be implemented on a simple computer, and include a user interface which indicates status of signal acquisition, selection and evaluation during a short, e.g., one-minute illumination interval. The ophthalmic instrument images tissue of the fundus, and the light collector is configured to collect light from a target region having a diameter under 0.5 mm, preferably under 0.2 mm, and as little as 0.02 mm which is selected by the operator by moving the light collector to a region of the image field which corresponds to the illumination spot, and is free of vessels. The control/analysis module also receives patient data via keyboard or network communication, and merges patient data with the acquired spectra to form medical records. Preferably, it also accesses or files records for the same patient in storage. A number of threshold, evaluation or diagnostic routines are implemented as macros to highlight or annotate the transformed measurement spectra and display the annotated data. The module is set to carry out signal acquisition for no more than a fixed number n of one-second intervals, and to terminate acquisition earlier if it has evaluated and positively approved a second, lesser fixed number m of well-formed signal traces. Audible prompts indicate acquisition of proper traces, and completion of analysis or fitting steps. A printer may print out spectra and derived data with user-entered annotations.
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Feke Gilbert D.
Feke Gilbert T.
Schepen's Eye Research Institute, Inc.
Smith Ruth S.
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