Retinal imaging for the diagnosis of systemic diseases.
The project started at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where the Media Lab's Camera Culture Group has an ambitious goal: 'to make the invisible visible' within our bodies, around us and beyond, for the advancement of health, work and interconnection.
The aim of the various research groups is to create innovative imaging platforms capable of capturing elements of reality beyond the human sensory range and generating information relevant to scientific knowledge.
This is the background to Tristan Swedish's work, which led to the development of a camera that, with simplified optics and an appropriate illumination system, allows retinal images to be acquired for the diagnosis not only of eye diseases, but also of important systemic diseases, such as cardi-vascular diseases, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis.
Frequent eye monitoring would allow early detection of early signs of these serious diseases.
Another interesting aspect is that this new device will be able to be used not only by doctors, but by the patients themselves to take pictures of their retinas, which is why we talk about "eye selfie'.
Let's see in detail how it works: the device emits a red light through tiny holes that cause four small red lights to appear forming a lozenge. Initially, patients see the lights as dimly lit dots, but as soon as they move their eyes, they notice that the dots become brighter when they look in a certain direction. When the dots become bright, a second lozenge of dim red dots appears within the previous one. The person shifts his or her gaze again until he or she sees all eight red dots clearly form a lozenge within the previous one.
The lights work somewhat like an optical archery range, with a ninth light in the centre of the two lozenges acting as the centre of the target. The patient's retina must be perfectly aligned with the central light in order to get a sharp retinal photo. It is not so simple, but with about 10 minutes of practice most people are in a position to press the button at the very moment they see the 9 lights and obtain an image suitable for analysis. At present, the analysis of retinal images remains the sole responsibility of the doctor, but software is being developed that can analyse the colouring, shape of blood vessels and other elements detected in the retina that can be useful in determining the health condition of patients and process the information over time. With such a system, it would be possible for people to monitor their health condition and, when the first signs that something is wrong are detected, to promptly go to the doctor for a thorough examination.
The news has already been anticipated by 'The Economist' of 13 June 2015 and will soon be published in Association of Computing Machinery Transactions on Graphics.
For updates on this project, please visit http://web.media.mit.edu/~tswedish/projects/eyeSelfie.html
Dr. Carmelo Chines
Direttore responsabile
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