It’s an OCT World Led by two of the field’s pioneers, an interdisciplinary team at Duke is pushing the boundaries of optical coherence tomography technology and application, and revolutionizing ophthalmic care as we know it.
BY L AUR A ERTEL
10
SINCE ITS INVENTION 25 YEARS AGO, OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY (OCT) has—without exaggeration—transformed the practice of ophthalmology. OCT is a non-invasive imaging technology that bounces light waves off different parts of the eye, creating very high-resolution images that allow ophthalmologists to see the surface and inside the tissues of the eye in very fine detail not possible with the naked eye. (For comparison, ultrasounds use sound waves; since light travels much faster and has a smaller wave length than sound, OCT images are much higher resolution.) Over the last quarter century, OCT technology has developed in amazing ways— and a multidisciplinary team at Duke University is responsible for much of that development. Led by two of the world’s pioneers in this field, the Duke team is continually looking for ways to improve this technology and take it places that were never thought possible Retinal surgeon Cynthia A. Toth, MD and biomedical engineer Joseph A. Izatt, PhD have both been involved with OCT since its earliest days, and have collaborated since the mid-1990s, even before Izatt came to Duke. This collaborative team, each with faculty appointments in Ophthalmology and Biomedical Engineering, has built one of the world’s leading OCT research programs, with a strong track record of technological innovation and, uniquely, a consistent history of successfully translating these innovations from the laboratory to patient care. To do this, Toth and Izatt have built a community that bridges two of Duke University’s strongest disciplines: medicine and engineering. On a weekly basis, Duke medical and surgical colleagues from virtually every ophthalmology subspecialty, bioengineering faculty and graduate and undergraduate students, medical students, ophthalmology residents, fellows and post-doctoral candidates, research technicians and neonatal specialists come together to brainstorm ways to improve eye care and then work to adapt and improve OCT technology to bring these ideas to fruition with patients.
DUKE EYE CENTER
2016
The results are reaching into every corner of ophthalmology care and are creating what Toth calls “an OCT world,” one where we are able not only to create ultrafast, ultra-sharp three-dimensional images, but also to provide those images to surgeons in real time in a functional and useful way. Toth and Izatt’s work was featured in the special 25th Anniversary Issue of Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science (IOVS). Here’s a glimpse into the world the Duke team is creating:
A patient in surgery for which intraoperative OCT was used to help make sure her retina repair was successful.