optical coherence tomography (OCT)

[LATW]

Hello!! Does anyone have an eye doctor who helps keep track of progression with this eye exam? Mine is showing progression.

LA

[supermum_ms]

Hey you, pardon the pun but it's sooooo nice to 'see' you back on these boards :D

They did a pretty big international longitudinal research study on the OCT and MS back in 2015 which demonstrated periodic OCT's were useful in tracking MS disease progression, from there the OCT is becoming more commonly used monitoring patients, though it's probably still early days. It's taken nearly a decade from when i first found out the significance of the OCT and MS to get it this far....  

"October 29, 2015

These Innovative Investigators from the International MS Visual Consortium are Driving Novel Research Using OCT Technology to Advance MS Knowledge and Treatment

The collaborative team of Drs. Laura Balcer, Peter Calabresi and Elliot Frohman have been selected as the winners of the 2015 Barancik Prize for Innovation in MS Research.  This team of physician-scientists have worked together for almost 10 years to produce novel, ground-breaking and impactful research about the anatomy and biology of the retina and other structures of the eye in people with multiple sclerosis (MS). In their more than 50 publications, the team has literally “written the book” when it comes to applying optical coherence tomography (OCT), a common and easy-to-use eye scanning technique, to study MS.

Thanks in large part to this team’s efforts, OCT has transitioned from a tool for ophthalmologists who treat glaucoma patients to a mainstream tool used to study disease mechanisms underlying MS in particular, but new evolving research suggests that such observations may apply to neurodegenerative disorders in general.  Research led by this group has shown that OCT can identify unsuspected damage in nerve fibers at the back of the eye, and that this damage echoes more global damage in the brain during the course of MS, making it an invaluable tool for measuring the success of treatments in the clinic and during clinical trials of new therapies. The group has also related different types of nerve fiber damage in the eye to the loss of visual acuity and vision-related quality of life scores.

This trio of researchers leading the International MS Visual Consortium has established OCT as an accessible and critical tool in clinical care and clinical trials, thereby developing a new biomarker of disease pathogenesis.  Numerous trials of potential disease-modifying therapies now incorporate OCT measurement into outcomes, and ongoing and new studies of novel neuroprotection agents have highlighted the use of OCT as a robust “surrogate” or indirect measure of nerve fiber health and damage."

https://www.nationalmssociety.org/About-the-Society/News/Leading-Edge-Collaboration-in-Eye-Related-Research

2018: Retinal imaging with optical coherence tomography: a biomarker in multiple sclerosis?

"A recognized challenge in the field of MS relates to the need for better methods of detecting, quantifying, and ameliorating the effects of subclinical disease. Simply stated, better biomarkers are required. To this end, optical coherence tomography (OCT) provides highly reliable, reproducible measures of axonal damage and neuronal loss in MS patients. OCT-detected decrements in retinal nerve fiber layer thickness and ganglion-cell layer–inner plexiform layer thickness, which represent markers of axonal damage and neuronal injury, respectively, have been shown to correlate with worse visual outcomes, increased clinical disability, and magnetic resonance imaging-measured burden of disease in MS patients.

Recent reports have also suggested that OCT-measured microcystic macular edema and associated thickening of the retinal inner nuclear layer represent markers of active CNS inflammatory activity. Using the visual system as a putative clinical model in MS, OCT measures of neuroaxonal structure can be correlated with functional outcomes to help us elucidate mechanisms of CNS injury and repair. In this review, we evaluate evidence from the published literature and ongoing clinical trials that support the emerging role of OCT in diagnosing, staging, and determining response to therapy in MS patients."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6074809/

My visual issues are still deteriorating which is a bummer, it was only last month that i couldn't see out of my left eye, it was only a couple of days ago though that i realised i didn't get everything back this time, so i've got another new visual norm to work my way around....curiosity but if your OCT is showing progression is there a plan to stop-slow it down?

Cheers........JJ