Abstract

SA.12.05

Polarisation sensitive OCT – A novel diagnostic approach in age-related macular degeneration

Christian Ahlers
Universitätsklinik für Augenheilkunde und Optometrie, Medizinische Universität Wien, Wien, Österreich

Spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) has become the standard in diagnosis and treatment evaluation of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) due to its higher resolution and increased scanning speed compared to conventional OCT.
However, SD-OCT has distinct limitations in the assessment and exact identification of changes within the retinal pigment epithelium. Polarisation sensitive OCT (PS-OCT) is a novel approach that enables to visualize changes within the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) due to its specific tissue properties. Combined with specifically developed segmentation procedures, PS-OCT is capable to identify the RPE and to precisely measure areas of RPE loss in all forms of AMD, making PS-OCT a unique tool to asses the effect of therapies for dry- and neovascular forms of AMD that are currently in clinical evaluations.
This presentation aims to give the auditorium an understandable introduction into the topic and to discuss recent scientific approaches in comparison to autofluorescence and conventional SD-OCT studies.
New and clinically relevant features of RPE disease in AMD will be presented and discussed.

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