Recently we had an inquiry through our website for some photographs.  We offered to post her inquiry on our forum to see of anyone is willing/able to help this person out.  I have copied the inquiry below along with their email address.  If you wish to contact this individual, please use their email address as they are not a member and will not be able to respond to this forum.

Thanks,
Barb McCalley

INQUIRY:
I am a graduate student in Electrical Engineering.
I am doing a project on classification of Diabetes mellitus based on the classification of fractal characteristics of the retina.
In order to build my database, I needed images of florescein angiography of normal retina as well as those afftected by diabetes retinopathy.
Is there a way in which you would be able to help me out ?
Thank you
Nikita Gurudath
Email:  ng023112@ohio.edu
610-509-1616

I made an initial inquiry with Nikita Gurudath at Ohio University.

After several emails to fully understand her inquiry, I would like to post one of her replies here on our forum:

[QUOTE]

Mr. Jim,

I intend to perform image processing techniques on the photos and develop an algorithm that can train a system to distinguish between normal people and those affected with diabetes.

I am looking at acquiring as many photos as possible after the fluorescein angiography has been completed on both normal patients as well as patients affected with diabetes (diabetic retinopathy).

These are some of the requirements

1. JPEG format

2. Colored photographs

I do have a dropbox account (the email id would be nikita.gurudath@gmail.com).

[END QUOTE]

I verified that Nikita needs both Color and FA runs of normal patients, and diabetic patients for her research project.

Most Importantly; please fully digest this message first.

She needs a 'Rough' 7 Standard Field - or, a formidable 'Pan' of the patient, done of the Colors, and the FA run itself.

She doesn't mind 35 degree, or 50 degree photos.

The Colors MUST BE CAPTURED AFTER THE FA RUN. 

It wasn't until I emailed her a 'proofsheet' showing the sequence of photos that we capture as angiographers, that I was able to digest her inquiry.  But, it came to the surface after she saw externals, colors, red-frees, and a full 7' FA run, and then a 4-up Composite.  She understood our 'sequence' and was quite surprised that we do it this way, and clarified what she needed from us.

As an active member of ARVO (The Association for Research in Vision in Ophthalmology), I could see how having a resource such as us, in the OPS community, might be what she needs to get her PhD project off the ground.  Plus, in my previous history, my experiments had been performed on pathology slides, and nude mice, but, never in normal or diabetic human subjects.  I never had the opportunity.  Now, I am in a position to help another researcher, as I have always done in the past.

I am willing to step up to the plate, and see if I can get her some full FA/Color runs captured during my next go 'round, and I am hoping that some of you will be able too !

I'd probably start by capturing 1-2 Color images OU to get aquainted with the patient, then push dye, grab the earlies, pan around OU during my capturing sequence as I always do.  Then, just before the mid-late phase, drop the color function in, dis-enguage the exciter filter, lower my flash to 25 or 36 W/sec, and capture the peripheral color photos that I'd have done in the beginning anyway.  It will be close to 5 minutes by this time. Then, re-engage the exciter filter again, and knock off some 7 min lates, OU x 2, and then be done with the run.

I figured in this manner, there would be FA dye would be circulating in the eye, and, it would be no extra time involved for the patient in the chair, just that I've captured the color pan of my diabetic at a later time during the run.

I'm sure she will appreciate our efforts.

Thanks for reading this.

Jim

I have no idea about the IRB approval.  You would need to email her directly to ask that question.  This individual is not on our forum.

Barb McCalley

Jim