Ocular Coherence Tomography (OCT)
Ocular Coherence Tomography OCT to detect sperm in non-obstructive azoospermia – scanner attached to ached to operating microscope with scanned images sent to surgeons within seconds after scanning
Current Treatment for Non-Obstructive Azoospermia
Surgeons
A. Cut open the fibrous covering of the testis
B. Bivalve the tests
C. Find tubule with sperm using visual cues
D. Remove tubule, send to embryologist to find sperm
E.C lose up testis
This process may take many hours.
Our solution: Use Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) to identify occult sperm
Diagram showing principles of OCT for detecting sperm in testis.
•Light is split between blue (reference) and gold arms (samples).
•The OCT beam is scanned (s) over a sample.
•Light reflecting back from both arms is recombined and detected on a spectrometer based on a diffraction grating (g) and line scan camera (lsc).
OCT images sent back to the surgeons within seconds shortening time for surgeons to search for sperm in non-obstructive azoospermia
Color coded images to identify covering of testis (purple), tubule wall, and lumen containing sperm (yellow).
(a)Normal testis
(b)Non-obstructive azoospermia testis where sperm was identified
(c)Non-obstructive azoospermia testis where no sperm was identified
(d)Non-obstructive azoospermia testis where sperm was identified
work.