Zeiss improves swept-source OCT to boost vision care

16 May 2017

Partnership with Advanced Retina Imaging Network progresses assessment of diabetic retinopathy, retinal vein occlusion and more.

At last week’s Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) annual meeting in Baltimore, MD, Zeiss announced a number of advances to its Plex Elite 9000 Swept-Source OCT and OCT Angiography platform, which have been developed through the Zeiss “Open Innovation” approach with the Advanced Retina Imaging Network (ARI).

Zeiss commented that the collaboration of its Medical Technology business group with the ARI Network, a global consortium of clinical researchers, “is opening new insights into retinal disease and driving the development of new OCT technology to advance patient care”.

Zeiss demonstrated the potential of swept-source OCT with 200kHz technology; anterior segment OCT angiography; and new software package for advanced vascular assessment for diseases such as diabetic retinopathy and retinal vein occlusion.

Its new swept-source system, in addition to offering the widest field of view captured in a single OCT angiography scan, is able to rapidly acquire ultra-wide OCT angiography montage for what it describes as “unprecedented visualization of retinal vasculature with up to a 70-degree field of view”.

The Plex Elite 9000, a swept-source OCT and OCT angiography platform, is at the core of the ARI Network. It offers the potential to see deeper into the eye, more widely and in more detail from the vitreous to the sclera in the posterior segment, says developer Zeiss.

'Cutting edge'

“Each Plex Elite imaging system in the ARI Network is maintained at the cutting edge with iterative technology upgrades which are developed through Open Innovation with the ARI Network, giving users the latest innovations in retinal imaging technology”.

Since the launch of the ARI Network at the ARVO 2016 annual meeting, the consortium of clinicians at the forefront of retinal research has expanded to more than 200 clinical collaboration sites. Philip Rosenfeld, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman of the Network, has formed a Steering Committee, consisting of sixteen of the world’s most distinguished retinal specialists, to guide the clinical discovery agenda and to lead the Network’s collaboration with Zeiss to support members.

He commented, “Zeiss’s platform is a remarkable breakthrough in the imaging of the retina and choroid. It opens up a new world of structural and microvascular clarity. This collaboration is vital to the advancement of such imaging and scientific discovery.”

Nadia Waheed, M.D, M.P.H, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at Tufts Medical School and Director of the Boston Image Reading Center, added, “The ARI Network leverages the power of numbers with impressive global information sharing between top academic institutes allowing large studies with a higher number of patients than the usual collaboration with one or two centers.”

Dr Ludwin Monz, President and CEO of Carl Zeiss Meditec, said, “Collaboration is at the heart of our innovation process, Open Innovation with the rapid exchange of ideas and insights between researchers around the world and the scientists at ZEISS is helping fuel scientific discovery and accelerate technology development which may change vision care as we know it for the benefit of patients today and tomorrow.”