Automatic temperature-controlled retinal laser therapy: First clinical results

Laser treatments of the retina lack objective dosing and dosing control, especially for non-damaging thermally stimulating irradiations without any visible endpoint. Over the last years, a real-time optoacoustic temperature determination has been developed and has been successfully demonstrated to determine the temperature course during retinal photocoagulation in clinical study on diabetic macula oedema (DME). In recent work, the technique has been extended towards an automatic closed loop temperature control, which is now been used in a first clinical study on patients suffering from central serous chorioretinopathy (CSCR). So far 8 patients were treated with an aim temperature of 51°C, all patients will be observed over a period of 6 months. No adverse effects owing to the treatment has been observed. As interim results, temperature control could be achieved in most laser spots and all patients showed a complete or partially resolved subretinal fluid and an increased or stable visual acuity.