Dr. Donald Miller, an expert in
eye imaging technology at Indiana
University. “Future eye
health practitioners will have
incredibly more powerful imaging
tools than anything we
With new tools, eye health
professionals may be able to
catch disease even earlier. For
example, Miller and his research
team created a type of microscope
to improve the diagnosis
and treatment of glaucoma.
Glaucoma causes blindness
by damaging nerve cells at the
back of the eye. “The cells that
get damaged by glaucoma are
hard to see in the early stages of
the disease,” Miller says. “With
current technology, thousands
of cells must die before it’s detected.”
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24 Healthy Living | Spring Issue | 2018
His team’s new method
would allow eye doctors to see
the damage earlier. In glaucoma,
early treatment can often
protect you against serious vision
loss.
Other eye imaging technologies
are being developed
to better detect age-related
macular degeneration (AMD).
AMD is the leading cause of vision
loss and blindness nationwide
among people age 50 and
older. A current NIH-led study
is tracking retinal degeneration
in 500 people over five years to
look for early signs of the condition.
The team is using a
high-resolution imaging technique
called spectral domain
optical coherence tomography
(SD-OCT) to visualize different
sections of the retina. “It is
sensitive enough to detect very
small changes that other images
of the eye cannot see,” says
Bishop.
Another new imaging technology
allows scientists to track
a specific protein in the eye.
The approach may help doctors
catch cataracts (a clouding of
the eye’s natural lens) and presbyopia
(the inability to focus
up close) earlier.
Other research groups are
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