Ocular Thermography: Investigation on some Pathologies

The focus of this research is the investigation of the Ocular Surface Temperature (OST) in both healthy and pathological (e.g. age-related macular degeneration, eye dry syndrome and choroidal lesions) eyes by using Infrared Thermography (IR). Specifically, the temperature of different anatomical areas (or points) of the eye is measured by applying image processing procedures on the infrared images recorded. It is known that the pathogenesis of some ocular pathology is related to the variation of ocular blood perfusion, and thus to the temperatures of the anterior segment of the eye. Results demonstrated that thermography can provide quantitative documentation of these temperature measurements. Furthermore, thermography is a non-invasive, cheap, harmless and portable technique. The challenge is to make ocular thermography part of the daily diagnostic procedure by providing more and more reliable experimental data.