Effect of illuminating wavelength on the contrast of meibography images

Evaluation of the Meibomian glands morphology is becoming a popular assessment for dry eye. This evaluation is usually done by imaging the glands on the everted lids while they are illuminated with infrared light. Nowadays techniques to determine gland condition and dropout are based on grading scales with which meibography images are subjectively evaluated. In this work, we have measured the contrast of Meibomian gland images from ten subjects and for a range of wavelengths of the monochromatic illuminating light. We have used a xenon lamp and a monochromator as a light source, and a semi-automatic image processing technique for measuring the image contrast from 600 nm to 1050 nm. Contrast values inside glands are from 0.025 to 0.015 and between glands from 0.06 to 0.04. The greater values of contrast are obtained when Meibomian glands are illuminated with a wavelength close to 600 nm.