Ultrasound spectral analysis - based assessment of macular areas in patients with age related macular degeneration

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of irreversible vision loss in people aged 50 and older in the developed world. Early detection and treatment of AMD play the key role in helping patients at high risk for developing exudative to maintain their vision or slow down the progression of the disease. In this paper, the new technique for AMD evaluation using ultrasound spectral analysis is presented. Our aim was to compare B scan ultrasound signals backscattered from healthy tissues of macular area with signals from nonexudative and exudative AMD areas. In case-control study of 64 patients (144 tissues) we compared 82 cases of healthy tissue of macular area (I group) with 35 cases of nonexudative AMD (II group) and 30 cases of exudative AMD (III group) using B scan ultrasound. Estimated results showed that B scan amplitude and spectral intercept are informative to distinguish healthy tissues of macular area from AMD and spectral slope spectral, momentary bandwidth allow us to distinguish forms of AMD (nonexudative and exudative).We suggest that ultrasound spectral analysis is noninvasive, widely available, easy-to-use and less expensive method which can be used as an additional diagnostic tool in AMD detecting and differentiating when there are no possibilities to use more specific examination.