Polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography in the human eye

Publication date: November 2011 Source:Progress in Retinal and Eye Research, Volume 30, Issue 6 Author(s): Michael Pircher , Christoph K. Hitzenberger , Ursula Schmidt-Erfurth Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has become a well established imaging tool in ophthalmology. The unprecedented depth resolution that is provided by this technique yields valuable information on different ocular tissues ranging from the anterior to the posterior eye segment. Polarization sensitive OCT (PS-OCT) extends the concept of OCT and utilizes the information that is carried by polarized light to obtain additional information on the tissue. Several structures in the eye (e.g. cornea, retinal nerve fiber layer, retinal pigment epithelium) alter the polarization state of the light and show therefore a tissue specific contrast in PS-OCT images. First this review outlines the basic concepts of polarization changing light–tissue interactions and gives a short introduction in PS-OCT instruments for ophthalmic imaging. In a second part a variety of different applications of this technique are presented in ocular imaging that are ranging from the anterior to the posterior eye segment. Finally the benefits of the method for imaging different diseases as, e.g., age related macula degeneration (AMD) or glaucoma is demonstrated.

Source: Progress in Retinal and Eye Research - November 11, 2014 Category: Opthalmology Source Type: research