Friday, November 21, 2008

OCT at AAO: faster, broader

At the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) annual meeting 2008, which concluded last week in Atlanta, optical coherence tomography (OCT) was well represented both in the conference program (with several sessions dedicated to the topic and several more touching on it) and in the exhibit hall. Bioptigen, Carl Zeiss Meditec, Heidelberg, OPKO, Optopol, Optovue, and Topcon all exhibited -- most with large booths. Canon joined the OCT crowd too, demonstrating the use of its technology with Optopol's OCT system, so Optopol got double the exposure with Canon’s exhibit. Nidek wasn’t talking about its rumored OCT offering, but I’m guessing that company will release a system within a year. Of course the exhibitors emphasized eye care, but there was talk among some of OCT for other disciplines, including non-biomedical applications such as manufacturing.

At the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) annual meeting 2008, which concluded last week in Atlanta, optical coherence tomography (OCT) was well represented both in the conference program (with several sessions dedicated to the topic and several more touching on it) and in the exhibit hall. Bioptigen, Carl Zeiss Meditec, Heidelberg, OPKO, Optopol, Optovue, and Topcon all exhibited -- most with large booths. Canon joined the OCT crowd too, demonstrating the use of its technology with Optopol's OCT system, so Optopol got double the exposure with Canon’s exhibit. Nidek wasn’t talking about its rumored OCT offering, but I’m guessing that company will release a system within a year. Of course the exhibitors emphasized eye care, but there was talk among some of OCT for other disciplines, including non-biomedical applications such as manufacturing.

A 2-1/2 hour OCT session that required additional payment drew an audience of more than 200. When the moderator asked how many attendees currently have OCT systems, most raised their hands—and about 25% indicated they own spectral domain (Fourier domain) OCT systems. Not surprisingly, most of the attendees are focused on retinal applications, but about 15% or so use OCT for corneal work.

An overview of OCT emphasized the speed difference between the older time domain systems and the new breed of spectral/Fourier domain units -- but it was noted that the real bottleneck these days for OCT is computer processing time. That’s why last week’s announcement by Texas Instruments is so exciting; TI’s new embedded processors specifically target medical imaging.

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