Development of blood flow velocimeter for ocular vessels

Clinical evidence suggests that blood flow in the retinal vessels varies in progressing diabetic retinopathy, coronary arteriole disease, hypertension and some other clinical situations. The changes of the flow in the blood vessels may serve as a monitor of the disease and as a follow up device for treatment success. Despite their importance direct blood flow velocity measurements are not easily obtainable. Recent advances in the development of a laser Doppler anemometry for the determination of in-vivo retinal blood velocity enables to obtain, with a noninvasive technique, information relevant to the flow of blood in the human retina. The described anemometry system is designed to be integrated, self-aligned and to operate with backscattered light. The influence of the important design parameters as well as focusing of the control volume on the retinal arteries is analyzed. Due to multiscattering of light from the blood cells present simultaneously in the control volume, the electronic signal obtained is very difficult to process and sophisticated signal processing routines are still being developed. At present measurements are used to obtain results with blood flowing in glass tubes of an inside diameter of 50 to 2000 microns. Preliminary experimental and theoretical simulations are currently being performed to validate the principle of the proposed data processing technique. Initial measurements have already produced relative high quality (and thus processable) signals, indicating good prospects for a practical ophthalmic system operation.