Hand-Held Scanner to Change Screening? Maybe!

Researchers from MIT and the University of Erlangen and Praevium/Thorlabs developed a portable ophthalmic scanner for used in offices of a primary-care physicians, a pediatricians, or even in the developing world. The researchers essentially shrank a table-top optical coherence tomographer (OCT) with the help of a MEMS mirror. The scanner sends infrared light into the eye and onto the retina. The scanner measures the lights' "echoes," tracking changes in the time delay and magnitude of the returning light echoes. Then it creates a cross-sectional tissue structure image of the retina, resembling ultrasound imaging. To deal with the motion instability of a hand-held device, the instrument takes multiple 3-D images at high speeds, scanning a particular volume of the eye many times but with different scanning directions. By using multiple 3-D images of the same part of the retina, the instrument "in effect" corrects distortions resulting from the movement of the operator. It still needs to be evaluated in a clinical setting. One major problem with the scanner: Cost. Read more.