Design & develop an OCT-based ocular health kiosk to diagnose Diabetic Retinopathy

Principle investigator: Hossein Rabbani

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is revealed to be as one of the main complications of diabetes with prevalence of 95% and 60% in diabetic patients of type 1 and type 2 with over twenty years disease duration, respectively. This makes diabetes one of the leading phenomena for blindness and low vision.

Vision loss due to DR is irreversible in most cases. However, risk of blindness can be reduced up to 95% by early detection and treatment. An annual eye exam is proposed for people with diabetes, because DR is not often associated with early symptoms. In addition, people with diagnosed DR may need more frequent eye exams for follow up. The regular DR screening routine leads to delayed diagnosis until progression to severe DR such as proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) or diabetic macular edema (DME). People at risk of developing severe DR may need a comprehensive eye exam as frequently as every 2 to 4 months. Since current DR screening requires specialist equipment and expertise of the clinicians, only 35%-60% diabetic patients receive annual visit.

By designing an accessible automatic ocular health kiosk, more frequent and scheduled screening of the diabetic patients will be provided, and early stages of preventable, treatable and potentially blinding disorders can be detected.