Purpose To report a real-life experience with the Argus II retinal prosthesis system in blind patients with end-stage retinitis pigmentosa (RP) or choroideremia (CHM), focusing on the pivotal role of optical coherence tomography (OCT) in both preoperative and postoperative management. Methods This hospital-based case series included 3 blind patients who were uneventfully implanted with Argus II epiretinal device. These patients (2 with RP and 1 with CHM) were selected during the Argus™ II Retinal Prosthesis System PostMarket Surveillance Study Protocol. Complete screening procedures had involved 66 eyes of 33 patients afferent to the Center for Retinitis Pigmentosa of the Veneto Region. Results Preoperative OCT examination resulted in the exclusion of 8 eyes in 4 patients with bilateral posterior staphyloma diagnosing unexpected staphylomatous macular patterns in 2 patients with RP and no sign of pathologic myopia. Postoperative OCT study of Argus II proximity to retinal surface indicated a plausible correlation between electrode–retina distance and perceptual threshold in 2 of our 3 patients. In particular, during the first 6 months of follow-up, the patient with the closest contact between device and macula showed a continuous vision-related improvement in the performance of several real-life tasks. Conclusions The present findings illustrate the modalities by which each different OCT examination is an essential tool to optimize safety and efficacy profiles during Argus II protocol. Optical coherence tomography will be crucial for future investigative approaches on patient selection criteria and next-generation implant design.
A high-speed, high-resolution swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT) is presented for focusing lens imaging and a k-domain uniform algorithm is adopted to find the wave number phase equalization. The radius of curvature of the laser focusing lens was obtained using a curve-fitting algorithm. The experimental results demonstrate that the measuring accuracy of the proposed SS-OCT system is higher than the laser confocal microscope. The SS-OCT system has great potential for surface topography measurement and defect inspection of the focusing lens.
Intra-operative microscope-integrated swept-source optical coherence tomography guided placement of Argus II retinal prosthesis