Sydney Eye Hospital Foundation has funded the purchase of a new Optical Coherence Tomographer (OCT) for the Kogarah Eye Clinic, a satellite clinic of Sydney Eye Hospital’s Outpatients Department.
The case for funding
OCT is a non-invasive diagnostic instrument used for imaging the retina and is considered essential technology to deliver excellence in eye care now and into the future. It has even been reported it can detect problems in the eye prior to symptoms being present.
Images of the optic nerve are vital for accurate diagnosis and monitoring of disease progression for patients with both acute and chronic eye conditions.
Retinal imaging can be helpful for those who have had previous ocular injuries, those with family history of eye diseases such as glaucoma and macular degeneration, people aged over 50 years, and those who are highly myopic (short sighted).
This type of retinal photography is capable of detecting and monitoring conditions such as dry macular degeneration, wet macular degeneration, glaucoma, macular holes, epiretinal membranes, diabetic eye disease along with eye damage caused by high cholesterol and high blood pressure – just to name a few.
Donor impact
The OCT is a vital part of routine eye assessment and now the very best of care can be provided to locals in the heart of the St George area, 14 kilometres south-west of Sydney’s central business district where Sydney Eye Hospital is located.
“We are very grateful to have this new technology at the clinic. The new OCT is so fast, it takes a few seconds to take scans and gives us more information than ever before.” - Melanie Lai, Orthoptic Department Head at Sydney Eye Hospital
