What's On News Mater acquires the latest eye equipment for faster results and less invasive investigation.

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Mater acquires the latest eye equipment for faster results and less invasive investigation.

Tuesday 27 September 2016

Mater Hospital Brisbane’s Eye department is one of the first Australian hospitals, in both public and private sectors, to have acquired both Optical Coherence Topography (OCT) with Angioplex (TM) machine and Callisto microscope with RESCAN (TM) functions providing specialists with faster results and less invasive investigation.

The OCT Angioplex machine scans the vessels in the back of the eye (macula and retina) within seconds – drastically cutting diagnosis time.

Mater's Director of Ophthalmology A/Prof Anthony Kwan, retinal specialist and vitreoretinal surgeon, said patients who suffer from conditions such as diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration or retinal vascular occlusion require constant monitoring which can now be performed faster and more safely.

Previous technology required a nurse to administer a fluorescein dye injection into the arm of the patient which was time consuming, costly and some patients may have allergic reactions, and rarely severe adverse reactions,” he said.

“OCT scan with Angioplex function replaces the need for fluorescein angiogram in majority of the patients, making the diagnosis and monitoring of these diseases a faster and safer procedure,” Dr Kwan said.

The surgical microscope with RESCAN is used during surgery in the operating room, it is essentially an intra-operative OCT scan, thus allowing the surgeon to check whether further surgery is required then and there.

"Previously, patients were brought back to assess whether more surgery was required as opposed to redoing the surgery, it is useful in both corneal and retinal surgery” Dr Kwan said.

Now we can instantaneously ensure anatomical outcome is optimal, for example the position of corneal endothelial grafts and the completeness of epiretinal membrane removal, thus ensuring that some patients don’t have to come back to the operating theatre” he said.