Enlarging Attachment for Binocular Indirect Ophthalmoscopy

Background:

Indirect ophthalmoscopy is performed by an examiner with the use of a binocular indirect ophthalmoscope (BIO). The examiner uses a headset to view an image of the patient's eye in a condensing lens hand-held by the examiner at arm's length in front of the patient's eye. The examiner then adjusts the distance between the condensing lens and the patient's eye in order to fill the entire condensing lens with the image of the fundus. With the current technology the condensing lens, through which the fundus is viewed, fills only a portion of the examiner's field of view through the instrument, making it difficult to see fine anatomical detail.

Technology Overview:

This Enlarging Attachment for Binocular Indirect Ophthalmoscopy developed by researchers at SUNY Optometry is a simple-to-use, universal, inexpensive, and retrofittable attachment. The device improves the clinician's view of the fundus by magnifying their view of the condensing lens (which has the fundus image inside of it) and reducing distracting extraneous details that are outside the condensing lens and not part of the fundus.

Advantages:

• Captures more information with better quality from the BIO, which is particularly important when working with disabled and/or wheelchair bound patients or in remote locations.
• Simple to use, universal, inexpensive, retrofittable, and adds very little weight and size to existing BIOs.
• Can attach to virtually any manufacturer’s instrument simply by changing the configuration of the mounting point, which is where the teaching mirrors that come packaged with a BIO attach.
• No modification to the existing BIO itself is needed.

Applications:

 Detection and diagnoses of various disease states of the retina.

Intellectual Property Summary:

Patented US2019246900(A1)

Licensing Status:

This technology is available for licensing.