WEST KITTANNING — It’s as easy as following the little dot. New technology is making it easy for patients of optometrist Dr. Paul Lobby to have their eye problems diagnosed. Doctors can’t see all of the layers in the back of the eye. But a new state-of-the-art optical coherence tomography unit , known as an OCT, that he recently purchased for his office along Butler Road in West Kittanning changes that. “This is the premier instrument,” Lobby said. “It’s a tool that allows us to get a view of the retina that we never had before so we can make an earlier, more accurate and less invasive diagnosis of diseases of the eye.” The OCT takes a series of pictures of the optic nerve and retina. During the procedure, technician Jill Huet has a patient go through several of the more than 20 different scans of the eye using the new equipment. “Keep you eye on the dot,” Huet says. The patient stays focused on the dot for about a minute while Huet looks at the side-by-side colorized computerized image and video of the patient’s eye. “Your scans are really good,” Huet tells the patient. “No problems. That’s what we want to hear.” It is non-invasive and painless for the patients, saving them from undergoing a fluorescein angiograph in which dye is injected. The new technology adds depth to the doctor’s diagnosis. Doctors can view and accurately measure structural changes of the retina. The equipment provides a laser-based cross-sectional image of the tissue layers of the retina. The scan measures down to 100th of a millimeter in thickness. It detects glaucoma damage and macular degeneration at an earlier stage than before, allowing early diagnosis and treatment. A week ago, Dr. Lobby and members of his staff attended a seminar for the equipment at the Cleveland Clinic. There they were provided with additional instruction on its use and interpretation of the results. Dr. Lobby has been using the equipment for the past month. It is used to test two or three patients a day. There are approximately 5,000 OCTs in the United States, Lobby said. “This is the only one in Armstrong County.”

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