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First human retinal image brings sight-saving portable OCT a step closer
- Health tech start-up Siloton has captured a sub-surface image of a human retina using its miniature photonic integrated circuit chip technology. The firm aims to create a portable optical coherence tomography (OCT) system, capable of diagnosing retinal disease at home. Traditional systems are bulky, expensive and only available in hospital or opticians. Siloton's first-generation OCT chip, Akepa, replaces 70% of the optics usually found in traditional systems. Akepa acquires OCT images of a retinal phantom, including conditions like age-related macular degeneration and diabetic eye disease, and more recently, in healthy human retinas.
- The latest enhancements in software mean that the speed of imaging is less than a second, and the team is using AI to improve image quality. Siloton founding team members consulted with patients in focus groups and confirmed that they preferred binocular devices held up to their faces, compared to traditional chin rests employed by standard OCT systems. Siloton is halfway through the process of miniaturising all the optics and electronics into a handheld binocular device, and research-only systems will be deployed commercially next year.
- The firm intends to make the diagnosis and monitoring of eye diseases, including those leading to sight loss, more affordable and accessible. With an OCT portable system at home, patients can scan themselves every few days to enable early treatment and save hospitals money. Siloton's quality versus cost improvements are now enabling the target application to expand outside the ophthalmology sector to enable the screening of additional conditions such as optic neuritis, and the firm is working with the European Space Agency to explore technology for space missions. The aim is to offer the compact device Akepa, as a solution for spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS).
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