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Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) serves as a high-resolution imaging technology in many disciplines. In medicine, its use in glaucoma has revolutionized the diagnosis of disease and the detection of disease progression. OCT provides objective, quantitative analysis of the retina and optic nerve, allowing clinicians to accurately assess glaucoma in ways not possible prior to its invention. This has aided countless patients, as it allows a non-expert observer to provide expert level appreciation of the patient’s disease state. In this way OCT has flattened the earth, expanding access to skilled evaluation of glaucoma worldwide.
Now commercially available advances, such as widefield OCT and OCT angiography (OCT-A) using high speed swept-source imaging, already allow clinicians to make more complete assessments of their patients. OCT has continued to develop beyond measurement of retinal layers and vasculature, with laboratories now investigating the use of OCT for retinal single cell assessment, sublayer thickness quantification, optophysiology and retinal oximetry. The introduction of new iterations of OCT, such as adaptive optics OCT (AO-OCT) and visible light OCT (vis-OCT) have enabled the investigations above. Finally the use of artificial intelligence for OCT has promises exciting advances in OCT image and data analysis and in the prediction of disease activity.
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