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US 5,474,066 AGranted
Non-contact tonometer
AssigneeLeica Inc.
InventorBernard Grolman
Life of this patent
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AssigneeLeica Inc.
InventorBernard Grolman
Estimating the term…
An improved tonometer is disclosed having a pachymetric device means for measuring a patient's corneal thickness to allow for correction of the intraocular pressure measurement where the corneal thickness measurement deviates from a calibration mean corneal thickness. In a preferred embodiment, a single light source is pulsed just prior to intraocular pressure measurement to illuminate a central corneal section, and a pair of lateral light detector arrays are arranged to obliquely image the corneal section and generate signals which may be processed by a CPU to produce a corneal thickness measurement. If the corneal thickness measurement deviates from the calibration mean corneal thickness, the CPU calculates a thickness-corrected intraocular pressure measurement. The intraocular pressure measurement, corneal thickness measurement, and/or corrected intraocular pressure measurement may then be reported by a suitable display.
An ophthalmic instrument comprising a housing and testing means for testing an eye of a patient mounted within said housing, said testing means having an alignment axis alignable with a corneal vertex of said eye of said patient, tonometric means for measuring intraocular pressure of said eye without contacting said eye, and pachymetric means for measuring corneal thickness of said eye without contacting said eye.
In a non-contact tonometer of a type having an alignment axis, a fixation target centered on said alignment axis, a pneumatic system in which a fluid pulse is directed toward a cornea of a patient, a corneal monitoring system in which the effect of said fluid pulse on said cornea is determined, an alignment system for aligning said pneumatic and monitoring systems relative to said cornea, and control means for controlling said pneumatic, monitoring and alignment systems to generate an intraocular pressure measurement, the improvement comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.