Easyscan
A device manufacturer now benefitting from direct presence in the UK was Easyscan, with its scanning laser ophthalmoscope retinal scanner of the same name.
The retinal scanner is billed as an alternative to OCT, which business development manager Graham Avery said was an often-underutilised piece of equipment in high street optometric practice. The Easyscan is a significant step up from a fundus camera, but with enough features and benefits to rival the practical elements of an OCT device.
The trump card held by the device is the elimination of dilation, with detailed images available through a pupil size of just 1.5mm, with minimal skill on the part of the operator and no discomfort for the patient. It can also be used in a lit room, making it easy to install in practice.
The optical design of the device makes sure that the illumination light is imaged through a 1.5mm area at the top part of the pupil with reflected light collected through the bottom of the pupil. In contrast to standard confocal Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscopes the retina is not scanned with a single spot but with a narrow line, the reflected light is imaged on a line sensor to reject light not reflected from the retina. The company says it is this technique that allows for fast and high contrast imaging, through very small pupils.
Avery added that while there is a solid clinical case for installing the device, there are also genuine revenue opportunities. ‘With a small increase to the cost of an eye exam and adopting our marketing tools and support for better patient engagement and upselling opportunities, return on investment can be achieved in as little as 12 months,’ he says.
Keeler
One of the brand-new launches at the event was the Tonocare tonometer from Keeler.
Part of the Pulsair family of products, the new wireless non-contact device has been designed with domiciliary environments in mind.
Close attention has been paid to the balance of the device, making it easier to use in challenging testing environments. Positional detection is fast and auto-fires once an X is aligned within a box on the internal display.
Keeler says experienced practitioners can achieve two readings in both sets of eyes in about 30 seconds. This speed is helped by piston-based internals, which can fill faster than traditional tanks.
The soft-air puff system does away with disposable pins, which can offer substantial cost savings on consumables and time spent reordering.
Tonocare tonometer from Keeler
The cordless device can be attached to an accompanying docking station that can be desk or wall mounted. The station also includes a built-in printer.
Bhupinder Lotay, product manager at Keeler, says: ‘I know many healthcare professionals have been trained on or are using a trusted Pulsair tonometer. Not only is it reusable, saving an enormous amount of money, but it’s fast and reliable. It’s great to be able to mark our milestone anniversary with the launch of such a highly anticipated product, and showcase our extensive market knowledge and industry status.’
Birmingham Optical
With some OCT devices costing upwards of £75,000, the financial reasoning for adding the technology needs to be sound.
Birmingham Optical’s OCT package offer for an OCT suite for £29,995 would have attracted a lot of attention. The package included a Nidek OCT, PC, monitor, table promotional support, CET and user training, delivery and installation. The company also offered guaranteed finance approval on Nidek OCTs purchased at the event in a joint offer with Performance Finance.
Birmingham Optical’s OCT
One of the company’s key launches was the Nidek TS-310 table top subjective refraction unit, which incorporates an auto phoropter, control box and chart.
The phoropter boasts an ergonomic design to improve patient comfort, says Birmingham Optical, and quiet lens changing system. From a practical perspective, the head features antifogging glasses and customisable rests and face shields.
A 5.7in LCD touchscreen display provides the user all relevant date and the control dial can switch between sphere, cylinder and axis quickly and easily. At the rear of the device, a line printer outputs all measurement data.
Grafton Optical
As prevalence of dry eye and associated symptoms continue to grow, the SBM Sistemi ocular surface analyser (OSA) from Grafton Optical arrives at a perfect time for those practices looking to increase their treatment portfolios for the condition.
SBM Sistemi ocular surface analyser from Grafton Optical
The device offers a full assessment of the ocular surface through a combination of tests for dry eye diagnosis, from tear break up time to the tear volume production test. It analyses the meibomian glands, as well as various measurements and classifications according to international grading scales and a traffic light results report.
OSA shows the morphological changes in the glandular tissue and the system analysis of images obtained through the sensitive infrared camera allows guided evaluation of the presence and distribution of the meibomian glands in the upper and lower eyelids, the extension of the area with normal glands and the percentage of the areas with or without altered glands.
Meibography, viewing the glands through trans-illumination of the eyelid with infrared light, also allows the user to evaluate the morphology and drop out of the meibomian glands and to make an accurate diagnosis.
The company says OSA provides thorough lacrimal analysis that allowed quick and detailed structural research of the tear composition and also made it possible to identify the patient’s type of dry eye disease and determine which deficient layers (lipid, aqueous or mucin) should be treated.
Topcon
Topcon showcased a full suite of products at this year’s event. As OCT remains headline news in high street practice, the competition between manufacturers to remain at the forefront of the technology has intensified. Topcon’s DRI OCT Triton brings the advantages of higher imaging speed, 1050nm with 100,000 A-scans per second, allowing images to be obtained while reducing the negative effect of a patient’s eye movements on scan quality.
Topcon’s Smart Supra update for the Henson 9000 visual fields analyser
The high penetration of the swept source light also allows for the visualisation of deep layers in the eye, such as choroid and sclera, and provides views of the vitreous in a single scan. With the added benefit of OCT angiography with Octara ratio analysis, the Triton stands out as one of the most advanced OCT’s in the world.
Topcon’s DRI OCT Triton
The Smart Supra update for the Henson 9000 visual fields analyser offers supra-threshold and threshold perimetry combined in a single device. The new functionality replaces the need to test at locations below 20dB, a level that Topcon said had high levels of variability where measures of threshold were not available. To solve this problem, the device sets the threshold increment according to the normal variability found at each location, allowing it to test at levels which have a 95%, 98% and 99% probability of being seen.
Diopsys
There was much interest in the Diopsys electrodiagnosis system which has been previously reported on in this publication. Functionality of the retinal nerves and visual pathway tends to rely on acuity and visual fields in practice – both requiring a subjective response.
Diopsys electrodiagnosis system
It is also known that significant ganglion cell damage is found before repeatable field loss can be recorded. Electroretinography and evoked visual response are ways of assessing the neural transmission of the retinal nerve fibres and the visual pathway beyond but in an objective manner.
The Diopsys system allows this to be undertaken in a matter of minutes and using a patient-friendly skin attached strip as the reference electrode so making it a reliable and easy to perform alternative to assessing visual function.
As well as offering a new approach to the detection of conditions such as glaucoma and retinal damage, the system may also detect pathway defects and is a useful and more reliable option for assessing possible toxic responses that might otherwise have been assessed by use of the far less sensitive red Amsler chart.