Digital Resolution Improvement of SLO Angiograms

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The primary commercial objective of this research is a profitable software product for retinal specialists that will provide improved 2D resolving power of vasculature and other structures in the fundus, using fluorescent dyes with the scanning laser ophthalmoscope (SLO). These dyes are indocyanine green (ICG), which is infrared and thereby displays deep structures such as choroidal and optic nerve vasculature, and fluorescein (FITC) which is in the visible light spectrum and thereby displays retinal vasculature (top layer). We see a profitable market in SLO angiography alone. Our expertise and existing sales channels are in this market. An equally large market exists in conventional digital fundus photography. The focus of this Phase 2 project will be on SLO angiography. The work will later be applied, as well, to digital fundus photography and the reflected light SLO (such as the Heidelberg Retinal Tomograph). The objectives of this Phase II research are aimed at refining and proving the methodology to open a broad medical-research and clinical customer base. The specific aims are to: (1) Improve the speed to approach execution times necessary for routine clinical practice; (2) Ensure robustness with a variety of data types and conditions; (3) Develop a variant of the method that provides subpixel resolving power. (4) Demonstrate both a medical-research and clinical utility that will excite the interest of a broad customer base of retinal-specialist customers who are in medical-research and clinical practice. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: The product will initially be an add-on to SLO's from several manufactures (Heidelberg, Rodenstock, LDT) and eventually an add-on to digital fundus cameras. There are about 1000 new SLO sites per year, when all modalities are considered, and this number is growing dramatically. The price will be about $1000.