There is no known prevention or cure for the disease, which leads to blindness -- a situation Wooten attributes to the fact that there are currently no devices in widespread use for research or clinical use. Because the relationship between measures of dietary intake and retinal concentrations of the pigment is weak, using diet and blood values to predict the density in the eye is not optimal.
"We are taking advantage of the newly available LEDs in this machine," said Wooten. "This system is portable, rugged and accurate and can be used easily in a clinical or research setting."
If the hypothesis about a correlation between macular pigment levels and the disease proves true, ophthalmologists will be interested in measuring the levels in patients without the disease and those with early signs of the disease, said Wooten. The new machine will only be able to measure macular pigment in sighted people. Those in whom the disease has already progressed to blindness will not be able to be measured.
Nine macular densitometers are now in use at the University of Hong Kong Eye Hospital, the University of Pennsylvania Department of Ophthalmology, the University of New Hampshire Department of Nutrition, and the Eye and Ear Infirmary in New York City.
Wooten designed, built and tested the macular densitometer with researchers at the Schepens Eye Research Institute in Boston, Mass., including Billy R. Hammond Jr., Richard I. Land, and D. Max Snodderly. Also providing design input were Robert K. Moore and Ken DeLucia at Brown. Wooten, Snodderly and Land have applied for a patent for the machine.
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Contact: Kristen Cole
Kristen_Cole@brown.edu
401-863-7508
Brown University
29-Sep-1999