创新背景

糖尿病视网膜病变是糖尿病的并发症，也是工作年龄成人失明的主要原因。随着糖尿病越来越普遍，这是一个日益严重的问题。幸运的是，如果早期发现，它是高度可治疗的，但发现它足够早，治疗起作用取决于遵守每年的眼科检查或筛查。

为了解决眼科检查依从率低的问题，卫生系统经常采用远程医疗筛查程序，由PCP办公室、社区诊所甚至病人家里的技术人员获取眼底照片，然后由远程眼科医生阅读。虽然有些效果，但大多数这些项目使用手持眼底摄像机，坦白地说，这不是很好，尽管它们相当便宜。它们糟糕的性能导致大部分成像过程以不确定的结果结束。

创新过程

与手持式眼底相机相比，低成本的便携式SLO设备将是一个巨大的改进，因为它本身就能够抵御眩光和伪影，这些眩光和伪像使许多眼底照片无法分级。创建便携式且便宜的SLO设备是一项技术挑战。在过去的几年中，研究人员开发了一种成本可扩展的便携式SLO设备，只是在等待时机评估其在临床环境中的性能。

SLO，即扫描激光视镜，是面部成像技术中的一种。它不提供层析切片或深度信息，而是产生视网膜的表面视图。因此，它主要是与眼底摄影竞争，而不是与OCT竞争。眼底摄影基本上只是拍摄视网膜的彩色照片。

SLO和眼底摄影相比OCT的优势在于它们通常使用可见波长(红、绿、蓝)而不是近红外。这为他们提供了光谱(颜色)信息的额外维度，这对识别与疾病相关的视网膜特征非常重要。这些尤其重要，因为它们可能是致盲疾病的早期标记，如糖尿病视网膜病变和老年性黄斑变性。

在SLO和眼底摄影之间，SLO显然是性能更好的技术，提供高分辨率，更宽的视野，更好的对比度，更少的图像伪影和优越的易用性。然而，SLO产品目前要比眼底摄影产品贵得多。特别是在价格敏感的市场，如筛查项目和验光办公室，眼底摄影通常被认为可以转介给眼科医生，在那里OCT很容易获得。

创新关键点

与手持式眼底相机相比，低成本的便携式SLO设备将是一个巨大的改进，因为它本身就能够抵御眩光和伪影，这些眩光和伪像使许多眼底照片无法分级。

创新价值

如果能用低成本的slo取代那些低成本的眼底摄像机，就可以大大提高这些DR筛查程序的筛查准确性，这对预防失明至关重要。

To develop low-cost laser microscopes to combat diabetic retinopathy

A low-cost portable SLO device would be a huge improvement over a handheld fundus camera, as it would be inherently resistant to glare and artifacts that make many fundus photos ungraded. Creating portable and inexpensive SLO devices is a technical challenge. Over the past few years, researchers have developed a portable SLO device with scalable cost and are just waiting for the time to evaluate its performance in a clinical setting.

SLO, or scanning laser view lens, is one type of facial imaging technology. Instead of providing tomographic slices or depth information, it produces a surface view of the retina. Therefore, it mainly competes with fundus photography, not OCT. Fundus photography is basically just taking color photos of the retina.

The advantage of SLO and fundus photography over OCT is that they usually use visible wavelengths (red, green, and blue) rather than near-infrared. This gives them an extra dimension of spectral (color) information that is important for identifying retinal features associated with disease. These are especially important because they may be early markers of blinding diseases, such as diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration.

Between SLO and fundus photography, SLO is clearly the better performing technology, offering high resolution, wider field of view, better contrast, fewer image artifacts and superior ease of use. However, SLO products are currently much more expensive than fundus photography products. Especially in price-sensitive markets, such as screening programs and optometry offices, fundus photography is often considered a referral to an ophthalmologist, where OCT is readily available.