Experimental assessment of stiffness of crystalline lens of the eye can help in understanding several ocular diseases. Studies have shown that stiffness of the eye lens increases with age that might contribute to loss of accommodation. The stiffness of the lens could be assessed by measuring mechanically induced surface waves propagating on its surface. Here we present preliminary results on phase sensitive spectral domain optical coherence tomography (PhS-SDOCT) measurements of the vibrations induced on surface of an eye lens. The system shows an axial resolution of 8 μm, phase sensitivity of 0.01 radians, imaging depth of up to 3.4 mm in air and a scanning speed of 29 kHz for a single A-line. The results indicate that the system could detect vibrations as small as 0.45 μm induced on the surface of crystalline lens, and hence, PhS-SDOCT could be potentially used to assess stiffness of a crystalline lens.

Date Published: 2 March 2010
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 7550, Ophthalmic Technologies XX, 755007 (2 March 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.842423

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7550:
Ophthalmic Technologies XX
Fabrice Manns; Per G. Söderberg; Arthur Ho, Editor(s)