Like an MRI of your eyes

80,000 Scans of your eye per second

 

New Tech Released in Australia in 2022

Only just released in Australia in 2022, Eyes in Style in the Liverpool area of Sydney, is one of the first Optometrists in Australia to have the new iScan80 OCT machine!

 

What is an OCT scan?

Optical Coherence Tomography or OCT's are same machines that eye specialists use to scan your retina and optic nerve for the detection of eye diseases like:

  • Glaucoma
  • Diabetic retinopathy
  • Macular degeneration
  • Retinal diseases

 

Older OCT's vs Ultra High Speed OCT

  • Older generation OCT's run at 27,000 scans per second or less. 
  • Our iScan80 does 80,000 scans of your eye each second! 

As such, we use one of the fastest OCT's in the world.

 

Why would you want an OCT Scan done on your eyes?

An OCT is one of THE most important tests that you can do on your eyes - in fact, it's a game changer.

Why?

Early Detection

Because your eyes could look normal on routine eye testing.  But the OCT can detect things that can't be seen on normal eye testing.  An OCT is a state of the art eye test.

It's like having an X-Ray or MRI done on your eyes

You know how dentists take X-Rays of your teeth to find out what's going on deep inside your teeth?  An OCT is like that for your eyes.

And you know how MRI's can detect many things that an X-ray can't detect?  OCT's are like MRI's for your eyes.

Peace of Mind

A patient said this to me, "I would rather detect something wrong with my eyes early - because that means that we can do something about it when the problem is small - rather than having it grow into a monstrous problem".

Early Treatment Saves Sight

Once you detect something early, you can treat it early and nip it in the bud.  An inch of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  If you catch something early - you won't need to treat it as much as when if you leave the problem to fester and grow into a major issue - then you'll have problems!

 

 

What happens in Glaucoma?

In Glaucoma - the nerve fibres from your optic nerve start to die off, usually due to high pressure inside the eyes. Once they die off, you lose vision in that area where the nerve fibres have died off.

The problem is - once your nerve fibres die off - they don't grow back.  So people with glaucoma have lost vision permanently in those area.  So once you lose vision in glaucoma - you lose it forever - it never comes back.  That's why youv'e got to detect it early.

If you leave glaucoma untreated - eventually, most of the optic nerve dies off and you're left with tunnel vision.

How does an OCT help in Glaucoma?

1. To diagnose your properly

OCT's can help give us a more definitive diagnosis of glaucoma for each patient.

Why is this important?

Because we don't want to be treating you for glaucoma if you don't need it!  Some eye diseases may look like glaucoma but isn't glaucoma.  So OCT's help us confirm our diagnoses.  Often, with glaucoma, people have to buy eye drops to be used everyday for the rest of their lives.  So we better make sure that you definitely have glaucoma before we treat you.

2. To monitor for the earliest signs of changes

As soon as the OCT detects your glaucoma worsening, we can immediately start changing your treatment protocol.  OCT does this through scanning:

  • The Ganglion Cell Complex
  • The Retinal Nerve Fibre Layer

Both of these areas of the retina die off early.  OCT can often detect this earlier than any other eye testing technology.

 

What happens to your eyes in Diabetes?

Diabetes affects the blood vessels all over the body.  And the eye is only place we can see the health of those blood vessels directly without needing to cut open the body.

What does Diabetes do to the blood vessels in your eyes?

It causes your blood vessels to start bleeding and leaking fluid and fatty substances into your retina.  And we can see this directly when we examine your retinas.

And when you get fluid leaking into your retinas - it's like having water leaking into your house.  The longer it stays, the more damage it does to your house.

How does OCT help in Diabetes?

It basically helps us detect changes INSIDE your retina earlier than even examining your retina with a digital retinal photo.  More specifically, it can help detect things like:

  • Diabetic Macular Edema - this means swelling and leakage at the centre of the retina which can affect your central vision
  • Monitoring the Effectiveness of Treatment - When eye specialists treat you for diabetic retinopathy, the effectiveness of the treatment can be seen through OCT directly - showing whether the treatment is working or not.