Predicting and Detecting Glaucoma Progression with New Imaging

Project Summary

This project will address the urgent need for more effective tools to predict and detect progression to prevent irreversible vision loss from glaucoma. It will, for the first time, examine whether hyperspectral imaging – a technique adapted from other fields (e.g. geology and ecology) – can be used to provide an in vivo marker of RGC injury that can predict disease progression. It will also examine whether high-resolution widefield OCT imaging can be used to exploit distinctive topographic patterns of progressive glaucomatous damage to enable detection of progression within a short timeframe.If successful, this project will overcome the current difficulty of identifying those at highest risk of glaucoma progression to target for more intensive initial treatments and close monitoring. It will also overcome the challenge of detecting progression within a short timeframe, thereby ensuring that appropriate modifications in treatments occur to prevent further irreversible vision loss as early as possible. Overcoming these obstacles will also expedite the discovery of new therapeutics (e.g., neuroprotective treatments or gene therapy) via improved identification of high-risk individuals.