What’s on the horizon for Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) treatment?

If you’ve recently been diagnosed with AMD or are currently dealing with this progressive eye condition, you may be interested to hear about some new and emerging technologies to combat this disease.
 

Currently, optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a noninvasive imaging technology that has been widely adopted by eye care professionals to view retinal anatomy and assess the need for treatment of increasingly prevalent, and often age-related, eye diseases that lead to blindness, including AMD. Today, doctors use OCT devices to image retinal structures during scheduled office examinations, providing valuable diagnostic information.
 

How does OCT work?

Optical Coherence Tomography uses light waves to take cross-section images of your retina, which is the area of light-sensitive cells at the back of your eye that is responsible for receiving light and transmitting it into messages that are sent up to the brain. The technology behind OCT enables your eye doctor to see each of the different layers that make up the retina. By being able to see these and measure them, they can obtain a much clearer picture of the overall health and condition of your eyes.
 

If you choose to have an OCT scan at fairly regular intervals, such as during your normal comprehensive eye exams, your eye doctor can compare newer results to previous ones. This helps them to build up a picture of the health of your eyes, and spot any changes which may be concerning, early, before they cause symptoms or have a permanent effect on your vision.
 

For many, these regularly-scheduled OCT scans are very helpful for your eye doctor to monitor the emergence or progression of a number of eye conditions. However, for those with neovascular Age-related Macular Degeneration (nAMD), more frequent monitoring is suggested, so the Notal Home OCT device can help!
 

What is Notal Home OCT?

Notal Vision is currently developing a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence-enabled digital diagnostic for patients with neovascular retina diseases using their patient-operated OCT device at home. The first disease in the Notal Home OCT Program pipeline is nAMD. Using a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence-enabled program for monitoring nAMD on this home-based OCT device, the information shared by this device will complement current disease monitoring strategies with your eye doctor.
 

The Notal Home OCT is a patient-friendly, lightweight device designed for easy operation by nAMD patients from the comfort of their home. Currently, this device is engaged in ongoing US usability trials, but early results have demonstrated that 90% of AMD patients can self-operate and generate analyzable images following a 2-minute tutorial on how to use the device.
 

Once a patient completes the at-home test, a proprietary machine-learning algorithm, the Notal OCT Analyzer (NOATM), performs an automated analysis. If retinal fluid is detected, a report is generated by NOA and shared with your eyecare provider by the Notal Vision Diagnostic Clinic. By doing these regular OCT scans, it is helping reduce the time from fluid onset to the next treatment step.
 

If you are over the age of 50 and notice some of the signs and symptoms of macular degeneration like worsening eyesight, blurred vision, etc. we recommend you visit us. We are here to help answer any questions you may have regarding age-related macular degeneration, eye health tips, and more. Spotting the symptoms of macular degeneration early can help to avoid vision loss in the future. Give us a call or request an appointment online today!