Informational bioeffects Atlas of laser lesions (IBALL) – Developing an online database for clinicians and researchers

Abstract

Lasers are increasingly present in modern life. Applications have expanded across industrial processes, medical treatments, military use, and common consumer products. As the availability of laser technology continues to grow, safety concerns increase accordingly. Despite the availability of ocular laser injury data in literature, no single source existed to help clinicians identify and classify ocular laser injuries when they encountered them in clinical settings. The Informational Bioeffects Atlas of Laser Lesions (IBALL) program provides DoD clinicians and researchers a searchable electronic database of images to use when identifying laser damage based on various exposure parameters, lesion characteristics, and diagnostic imaging modalities. In addition to providing reference images of retinal laser injury across a wide lesion parameter space, longitudinal experimental data collection captured the dynamic tissue response for days or even weeks post-exposure. Analysis of laser lesion characteristics across multiple imaging modalities, such as fundus photography and Optical Coherence Tomography, also provided complementary views of the tissue to improve our understanding of the innate biological response to laser radiation. Finally, the database design included a flexible and scalable environment to accommodate a variety of imaging data formats and future the incorporation of new experimental data.Lasers are increasingly present in modern life. Applications have expanded across industrial processes, medical treatments, military use, and common consumer products. As the availability of laser technology continues to grow, safety concerns increase accordingly. Despite the availability of ocular laser injury data in literature, no single source existed to help clinicians identify and classify ocular laser injuries when they encountered them in clinical settings. The Informational Bioeffects Atlas of Laser Lesions (IBALL) program provides DoD clinicians and researchers a searchable electronic database of images to use when identifying laser damage based on various exposure parameters, lesion characteristics, and diagnostic imaging modalities. In addition to providing reference images of retinal laser injury across a wide lesion parameter space, longitudinal experimental data collection captured the dynamic tissue response for days or even weeks post-exposure. Analysis of laser lesion characteristics acr...