Optical Coherence Tomography device for Otitis Media
AssigneeOtoNexus Medical Technologies, Inc.
InventorsJay A. CHESAVAGE, Mark A. MOEHRING
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An OCT apparatus and method for characterization of a fluid adjacent to a tympanic membrane has a low coherence source which is coupled to a splitter which has a measurement path and a reference path. The reference path is temporally modulated for length, and the combined signals from the reference path and the measurement path are applied to a detector. The detector examines the width of the response and the time variation when an optional excitation source is applied to the tympanic membrane, the width of the response and the time variation forming a metric indicating the viscosity of a fluid adjacent to the tympanic membrane being measured.
Claims23
1) A method for characterization of a fluid adjacent to a reflective membrane, the method comprising:
- providing a low coherent optical source to a first splitter, part of the optical energy directed to a measurement path and part of the optical energy directed to a reference path;
- the reference path having a temporally modulated length, thereby changing a reference path length over periodic intervals;
- the measurement path including a reflective membrane to be characterized, the reference path having a length substantially equal to the measurement path, the reference path also having a reflector for reflecting optical energy;
- summing the reflected optical energy from the measurement path and the reflected optical energy from the reference path and applying the summed optical energy to a detector;
- the detector providing a detector peak response with respect to the reference path modulator to a controller;
- the controller examining the pedestal width of a detector response and also the arrival time of the detector peak response;
- comparing a current peak detector response to previous peak detector responses;
- forming a tympanic membrane metric from current peak detector responses and previous peak detector responses, the tympanic membrane metric increasing when said pedestal width is increased, said tympanic membrane metric increasing when the variation in arrival time of said detector peaks decreases.
13) A device for the measurement of a tympanic membrane, the device having:
- an optical source generating a low coherence optical output;
- a first splitter and a second splitter, each splitter having a combiner port, a first port, and a second port, each splitter coupling power from the first port to the combiner port, and from the combiner port to the second port;
- The optical source coupled to the first splitter first port;
- the first splitter combiner port coupled to the second splitter combiner port;
- the second splitter first port coupling optical energy to an external optical port to a membrane to be characterized, the optical distance from the membrane to be characterized to the second splitter first port being a measurement length;
- the second splitter second port coupled to an optical reference path having an optical length modulated about the measurement optical length;
- whereby reflected optical energy returning from the external optical port is directed through the second splitter combiner port, to the first splitter combiner port, to the first splitter second port, and to a detector;
- a controller receiving a signal from the detector and comparing a current detector response to previous detector responses to form a reflection metric.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.