Procedural Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) for Surgery and Related Methods

Abstract

Methods are provided for performing a surgical procedure using optical coherence tomography (OCT) including extracting lenticular material from within a capsular bag of the eye of a patient; placing a replacement lens within the capsular bag after extraction of the lenticular material from the capsular bag; acquiring a plurality of OCT images that visualize the placement of the replacement lens within the capsular bag; and determining from the plurality of OCT images a degree of contact of the posterior surface of the replacement lens with the posterior portion of the capsular bag.

That which is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for performing a surgical procedure using optical coherence tomography (OCT), the method comprising:
 extracting lenticular material from within a capsular bag of the eye of a patient;   acquiring at least one OCT image of an interior region of the capsular bag after extraction of the majority of lenticular material from within the capsular bag;   determining from the at least one OCT image the presence of cellular debris remaining within the interior of the capsular bag; and   extracting at least a portion of the remaining cellular debris from the interior of the capsular bag.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein determining the presence of cellular debris includes displaying location of cellular debris within the surgical field of view on a graphical display. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein extracting at least a portion of the cellular debris is followed by:
 acquiring at least one additional OCT image; and   determining from the at least an additional OCT image the residual presence of cellular debris.