Methods and systems for automatic detection and classification of ocular inflammation
AssigneeCarl Zeiss Meditec AG
InventorsHarihar NARASIMHA-IYER, Mary K. DURBIN
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Systems and methods to improve the detection and classification of inflammation in the eye are presented. The inflammatory markers in image data can be graded by comparing identified and extracted characteristics from the images with characteristics derived from a set of images of eyes from a general population of subjects. The image data can be divided into sub-regions for analysis to better isolate the true inflammatory markers from the impacts of cataracts or other opacities. In another embodiment, the location of an imaging beam can be controlled to minimize the impact of lens opacities from the collected data used to analyze the inflammation state of an eye.
Claims19
A method for automatically analyzing images of an eye of a patient in order to grade haze or flare, comprising:
- collecting image data of the eye of the patient;
- identifying and extracting characteristics within the image data related to haze or flare;
- comparing the identified and extracted characteristics with characteristics derived from a set of images of eyes from a population of subjects to grade the haze or flare of the collected images;
- and
- reporting or storing the determined grade.
An ophthalmic diagnostic system for collecting image data of an eye of a patient and analyzing the data for inflammation comprising:
- an optical coherence tomographic imaging system comprising a light source to generate a beam of radiation, said system including optics for adjusting the entry position of the beam on the pupil of the eye and for scanning the beam over a set of transverse locations within the eye, said system further including a detector for measuring radiation reflected from the eye and combined with a reference beam of radiation, the detector generating output signals in response thereto;
- and,
- a processor for analyzing the output signals collected at different pupil entry positions to identify an optimal pupil entry position that minimizes the impact of opacities in the eye on the output signals, said processor further for controlling the optical coherence tomography imaging system to collect image data though the optimal pupil entry position and for identifying and extracting characteristics from the image data related to inflammation and for grading the level of inflammation by comparing the identified and extracted characteristics with characteristics derived from a set of images of eyes from a population of subjects.
A method for automatically analyzing inflammation in OCT data of an eye of a patient comprising:
- collecting OCT image data of the eye;
- processing the image data to identify cell clumps;
- deriving morphological characteristics of the identified clumps;
- comparing the morphological characteristics of the identified clumps with morphological characteristics derived from a set of images of eyes from a population of subjects to determine the cell types of the identified clumps;
- and
- reporting, storing, or displaying a representation of the cell types.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.