Detecting Eye Disease Early A new technique could be used to diagnose and treat patients before they begin to go blind.

State-of-the-art imaging equipment is being used by researchers at the University of Michigan to spy on cells in the eye in order to detect eye disease at a very early stage. They say that their technique could pick up signs of serious problems, such as glaucoma, early enough for patients to be treated before their vision is affected.

The researchers' method looks for metabolic changes in the cells of the retina and optic nerve due to disease. Those effects begin long before the first obvious signs normally hit, such as vision loss or structural abnormalities.

Using a sophisticated camera system coupled with customized imaging software, the researchers were able to detect changes in the eyes of patients with a brain disorder that can affect the optic nerve, and in people with two of the most common causes of blindness.

"We believe that this is going to be useful in a variety of diseases that affect the eye," says , an ophthalmologist and pathologist at the. The new test takes less than six minutes, and Elner says that it could be developed as a "point and shoot" system in which images are analyzed on a computer, either in an ophthalmologist's office or at a centralized location.