Taking a Closer Look at
Eye Disease
Preventative health care is credited with helping to catch disease
early, but it’s dificult to do the job when technology is lacking,
speciically in preventing eye disease stemming from diabetes.
However, Gainesville’s Sentinel Diagnostic Imaging is creating the
tools necessary for a diagnosis and treatment of eye disease much
earlier than current technology allows.
In patients with diabetes, tiny blood vessels that provide nutrients to
the retina – the part of the eye that “sees” images and “speaks” to
the brain – leak blood and other luid that can cloud vision to the
point of blindness. The condition is known as diabetic retinopathy
and, according to the American Optometric Association, it’s the
leading cause of vision loss for Americans under the age of 74.
Dr. Daniel Gibson, University of Florida (UF) College of Medicine
research assistant and professor, has teamed up with Sentinel
Diagnostic Imaging’s CEO Dr. David Meadows for a Florida High
Tech Corridor Matching Grants Research Program project to
create a better retinal image scanning and analysis tool to help
catch disease before symptoms set in. The goal is to enhance
Sentinel Diagnostic Imaging’s existing technology, Oqulus, to
have the same accuracy as a retinal specialist. According to
Meadows, there are only about 1,000 retinal specialists in the
nation – meaning the Oqulus technology would increase access to
specialist care.
“It’s been known for many years that the eye is the most
sensitive organ in your body for both neurological decline
and vascular decline,” said Meadows. “Oqulus will be
able to give a physician an indication of when and what
type of treatments a patient needs earlier than any other
technology currently in use.”
The Oqulus software analyzes an image of blood vessels in a
patient’s retina and characterizes biomarkers that indicate disease,
such as the number and health of those blood vessels present.
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Physicians can compare a series of images
over time to identify early warning signs of
a disease to monitor its progression or to
validate therapy.
It’s the ease with which Oqulus gathers
information that will make it an enticing
tool for health care providers. “You don’t
have to give the patient a jab or take
bodily luids and run it off to a lab – it’s a
picture,” said Gibson.
Matching funds from The Corridor have
allowed researchers from UF to collaborate
with Sentinel Diagnostic Imaging and
accelerate the project. Together, they
have equipped Oqulus to successfully
identify many of the biomarkers that
indicate diabetic retinopathy, and with
such success, are beginning to shift the
focus to glaucoma.
In the future, Meadows hopes that
Oqulus will become part of common
medical practices and help in identifying
biomarkers for a range of vision and
life-threatening diseases that manifest in
the eye, including Alzheimer’s, multiple
sclerosis and hypertension.