Eye fundus oximeter

Abstract

An eye fundus oximeter adapted to measure spectrally the oxygen saturation of the blood in the fundus of the human eye. The oximeter includes an illuminating optical system (8, 21, 10) for first illuminating the fundus of the patient's eye (11) with light of a wide wavelength range and then illuminating the same with light of four different spectra, a photoelectric element (13) for receiving the four kinds of light directly and not via the patient's eye and a photoelectric element (16) for receiving the four kinds of light impringing on the fundus of the eye and then reflected therefrom. The outputs of these photoelectric elements (13, 16) are compared at each of the same spectra, the results of such comparison being subject to given arithmetic operations to evaluate the oxygen saturation. The purpose of the pre-illumination of the eye fundus with light of a wide wavelength range is to discolor visual pigments in the photoreceptor cell layer in the fundus and aid in deriving information about the blood in the fundus.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.