New tech could detect blinding diseases much earlier
A non-contact laser imaging system developed by Waterloo Engineering researchers could help doctors diagnose and treat eye diseases that cause blindness much earlier than is now possible.
The new technology is designed to detect telltale signs of major blinding diseases in retinal blood and tissue that typically go unseen until it is too late.
With current testing methods, diseases such as age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma — which have no symptoms in their early stages — are usually diagnosed only after vision is irreversibly affected.