Imaging human postmortem eyes with SLO and OCT

Abstract

Confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscope (SLO) and spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (OCT) provide a comprehensive diagnostic assessment in the clinic. Here, we describe the use of SLO and OCT as the initial assessment to both screen "normal" postmortem donor eyes for retinal lesions and characterize retinal lesions in eyes with suspected pathology prior to histological analysis. The six human donor eyes described here were imaged using bright-field macroscopy, SLO, and OCT. One normal appearing eye was found to have a macular hole, and another normal appearing pair was found to have bilateral retinal pigment epithelium detachment centered on the fovea. SLO and OCT further characterized known retinal lesions in age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa donor eyes. This is the first time both SLO and OCT are applied in addition to bright-field macroscopy to screen and characterize a range of retinal pathology in human postmortem eyes. The use of combined imaging modalities identified and localized retinal lesions in postmortem donor eyes that would have been overlooked by using bright-field macroscopy alone. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.