Made-in-Montreal camera may spot early vision loss
Technology being adapted for use by ophthalmologists
A camera technology developed in Montreal that has been used to gaze into the farthest reaches of the universe is now being adapted to peer into the back of the human eye to detect early signs of disease and prevent blindness.
The biggest frustration for most ophthalmologists is that they are usually too late to reverse the damage caused to a patient’s eyes from age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy — the two main diseases responsible for vision loss in the industrialized world.
Ophthalmologists are often limited by the cameras that they use to scan a patient’s retinas for signs of disease. The cameras will show images of the retina in the back of the eye, with blood vessels flowing out of the optic nerve.
However, by the time an ophthalmologist can glimpse an abnormal blood vessel, the damage is already irreversible.
But what if a camera could be invented to spot the faintest, most subtle metabolic changes in the function of the retina before the damage even begins? That’s the question that ophthalmologist Jean-Daniel Arbour is seeking to answer with a new type of camera — the hyperspectral metabolic retinal scanner.
“The problem that we face is that we can only detect the diseases when those anatomical changes have already happened to the eye,” Arbour explained. “With this new technology, we aim to detect the disease at the metabolic level before the anatomical changes have occurred.”
Unlike the colour images in standard photography, hyperspectral imaging can capture an object along all wavelengths of the spectrum. Infrared photography, for example, can pick up certain details that standard photography misses.
Hyperspectral photography, which operates on all wavelengths, can find many more hidden details. Montreal-based Photon Etc. developed the technology — which can be applied to scrutinize geological formations in mining — and approached Arbour to find out if hyperspectral imaging could work in ophthalmology.
“We already have cameras that can detect diseases of the eye,” Arbour said. “My idea was to find out whether we could use hyperspectral imaging to detect changes before there is damage to the eye.”
More than half of all people suffering from diabetes ultimately develop retinopathy, which is when blood vessels swell or leak in the eyes. The standard eye scanners do pick up that eye damage.
In contrast, the metabolic hyperspectral camera will detect a drop in oxygen consumption in the retina — a telltale sign of imminent damage. Armed with that information, an ophthalmologist will be able to treat the retinas with injections of two types of drugs and prevent any resulting damage.
The plan would be to give eye exams to diabetics once a year using hyperspectral imaging and to treat the eyes in cases of metabolic changes. A similar approach could be used in people over the age of 50 who have a family history of agerelated macular degeneration.
“For me, the goal is to reduce to zero the loss of vision in patients,” said Arbour, who practises at the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal.
In Canada alone, more than 1 million people suffer from age-related macular degeneration and more than half of the country’s 2.5 million diabetics will develop retinopathy.
Optima Diagnostics, a private Montreal company, has invested in the camera technology, which has already been tested in Toronto and Montreal on patients and on people with normal vision. David Lapointe, CEO of Optima Diagnostics, said he hopes the camera will be made available for clinical use next year.
For now, though, Arbour is carrying out more research to determine the technology’s full potential, and he plans to publish his results in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
“It’s exciting, for sure,” said Arbour, chairman of the department of ophthalmology at the Université de Montréal. “We don’t know all the possibilities yet, but there is a lot of potential.”