Resumen
The H2020 project GALAHAD targets the critical need for better glaucoma diagnostic systems. Glaucoma is an age-related
major cause of blindness. The eye disease is characterized by an irreversible damage to the optic nerve head caused
by increased intra-ocular pressure. The current screening and basic diagnostics for the disease involve intra-ocular
pressure measurement, visual field tests and detection of structural damage to the optic nerve head and retinal nerve
fibre layer. The present methods have high rates of false positive or false negative results since the in depth analysis
of optical nerve head damage is not possible due to the poor resolution of available optical technologies. A leading
candidate is optical coherence tomography (OCT), but the required axial resolution is ~1 microns, well beyond the 3-5
microns resolution of comnercial systems. GALAHAD aims to develop a label free, compact and easy to operate high
resolution diagnostic OCT system. The multiband and multimodal system will use submicron ultra-high resolution
polarisation sensitive OCT (UHR PS OCT). The key breakthrough elements are: (i) A revolutionary low cost
multiband supercontinuum light source. (ii.) Ground-breaking ultra-broadband photonic components required to
exploit such a source. (iii.) Automated glaucoma screening algorithms: using end user evaluation of cell and animal
models and tissue samples, automated algorithms will be developed, trained and tested so that non-expert operators
will be able to perform glaucoma screening. The GALAHAD in depth glaucoma diagnostics after a positive screening
with conventional methods will dramatically reduce false posítive and false negative screcning results and decrease
the number of patients suffering from glauconma~related disability.