RETIVUE LLC — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase II: N

Description

Project Summary Over the past two decadesdiabetic retinopathyDRhas become the leading cause of adult blindness in the USaffectingof all diabetic patients and resulting in $million a year in direct medical costsVision loss due to DR is largely preventable and can be reduced by up towith appropriate eye screeningHoweverin the USless thanof diabetic patients receive a recommended yearly eye exam due to many factors that include lack of access to eye care professionalsDistributed tele ophthalmic screening thru primary care clinics can potentially provide all diabetic patients costeffectiveyearly evaluations to detect DR and prevent vision lossHowevergold standard sensitive detection of DR using standard retinal photography is complex and cumbersome process requiring up toimages per eyeThis screening process cannot for all practical purposes be achieved without having highly trained ophthalmic photographersRetiVue proposes to develop the RetiVue DR in collaboration with Olympusto create the first handheldnonmydriaticfield of viewwidefield DR screening cameraIt will allow single photo capture of an area up to ten times greater than conventional fundus camerasallowing sensitive detection of DR at its earliest time pointsFull integration of RetiVue and Olympus hardware will enable the most advanced and highest image quality handheld retina camera on the marketUse of automated alignmentauto laser focusand auto image capture will allow complex imaging of the retina to be performed simply by positioning the irisrequiring no user knowledge of retinal anatomyWe have established clinical proof of concept with our patented technologybut require several additional innovations in optical designautomated image recognitionand retinal image processing to enable a commercial deviceWe will for this proposal optimize our alignment system and laser based focusing system for widefield imagingallowing automated alignment and focus to image the retina before eye movement occursWe will develop a new method of widefieldnon mydriatic peripheral retinal imaging using multiple LED slit beam projectors to allow rapidsegmentalsequential image capture ofandFOV on diabetic patientsFinallywe will create the most advanced retinal image processing algorithms to remove Purkinje haze which prevents conventional cameras from imaging beyondFOV and enable seamless stitching of segmental peripheral retina images into a single widefield image