What I want to do, if possible, is to make that grey line represent the measurement of whatever the PREVIOUS scan was... NOT the original.  So the 6th scan is measured against the fith (and so on)Can this be done?

Gary

The Spectralis OCT uses a grey line to mark the original thickness of the RNFL scan. Every other scan thereafter is measured against that original grey scan line. So if you're doing someone's 6th or 10th scan, you would see changes compared against the very first scan the patient had.

What I want to do, if possible, is to make that grey line represent the measurement of whatever the PREVIOUS scan was... NOT the original.  So the 6th scan is measured against the fith (and so on)Can this be done?

Gary

Gary,

Are you talking about "Set Reference" scans and then doing "Follow Up" scans at subsequent visits?

If so, this is how it was explained to me. Once scan is set as a reference it is used when a follow up scan is done. Then the reference scan/point is moved/transferred to that next scan.

Example:

Intitial Scan don, Set as reference - Jan1st

1st Followup Scan done - Feb 1st - uses data from Jan 1st scan but moves reference to Feb 1st.

Second Followup Scan - Mar 1st - uses date from Feb 1st scan and moves reference to Mar 1st.

I think that is how it works.

Hope this helps,

bob

Somewhere along the way they added the feature to allow the reference scan to automatically update to the previous scan (v. the "original" scan set as the reference). I believe this was in response to MDs desire to be able to track change from visit to visit after injection therapies v. tracking overall progression of a disease over time as originally designed.

If your system is leaving the reference set at the original scan and you want it to update and use the previous scan as the reference you'll need to change the OPTIONS settings.

Open a pt to the lightbox view and then open up a scan.  You will see OPTIONS, then PREFERENCES, then MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS in the list on the left, click it.  In the middle of the dialog box you should see 2 boxes under Progression, the second one says "compare new exam to last visit"  that is the choice you want.

To the best of my knowledge this is a universal settings change.  So even though you had to go into a pt to change it, the behavior will exist in all patients scanned subsequent to the change.  We had some issues with this, in that our system didn't immediately start to update the reference scans and then one day it magically did.  Not really sure why this happened, but it was in an older version of software...or it was just a bug on our system.

If you've been using the "original" baseline exam as the reference and make this change, you might want to make your MDs aware. 

We did try and manaully re-set some patients back to their "original" reference scans but this became very cumbersome on busy days and we also noticed some more quirky behavior so abandoned the practice and just let all patients be compared to their immediately prior visit.

This also has MAJOR implications if someone requests prints or reanalysis on older scans for presenting or teaching purposes.  If you go back and attempt to reanalyze (re-print) a report on an older scan, the software isn't smart enuf to move the reference to the prior exam.  It will use whatever visit is currently the reference and perform the analysis, even if chronologically inaccurate. 

Example: Scans in Jan Feb March and April.  Jan is set as reference and then subsequently the next visit becomes the reference.  So April's scans are compared to March's.  If you go back and re-analyze Feb's scan...they too will be compared to March.

HTH - YMMV

j-

I appreciate your advice and will give it a try to see if it works for us.

Again, thank you!

Gary