The eyes have it - Ophthorobotics AG

Patients with age-related retinal disease need regular injections in the eye. At the moment, these must be given by specially trained medical doctors, but a robot may well handle this task in the near future.

In Switzerland, the most frequent cause of serious visual impairment among older people is macular degeneration, affecting one fifth of those over 80. The condition rarely leads to complete blindness, but it severely worsens a person’s vision. Those who suffer from it are often left with blurred vision and can no longer read or drive. In serious cases, they can only distinguish between light and dark.

Macular degeneration is incurable, but its advanced stages are manageable with medication. This slows the progress of the disease and in some cases even helps the patient regain some visual acuity. The treatment calls for injections every four to six weeks – directly into the eye. “The procedure is unpleasant, but not painful for most people,” says Professor Stephan Michels, Deputy Chief Physician of the eye clinic at Triemli Hospital in Zurich. Triemli alone carries out 7,500 eye injections every year, and when looking at Switzerland as a whole, that figure climbs to some 100,000. “Sometimes I treat up to 60 patients in one day,” Michels says.

Injections at the touch of a button

In future, he and his colleagues may get support from a robot currently in development at ETH start-up Ophthorobotics. The company was founded by researchers from ETH’s Multi-Scale Robotics Lab together with retinal specialists from Triemli Hospital. “Our robot will be the first to help in administering eye injections,” says Franziska Ullrich, a mechanical engineer at ETH and the CEO of Ophthorobotics.

Read the complete ETH Globe magazine article.

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