The dynamics of the lesions’ healing process following laser treatment after week 1 suggest a strong dependency on the loss of initial fluence at each specific laser spot, presumably attributable to small media opacities and overlying retinal edema. The overall persistence of polarization-scrambling columns over the course

of 3 months indicates a much more intense healing reaction and proliferation of RPE cells than previously shown in rodent studies. These findings might support the hypothesis that the beneficial effect of grid and focal photocoagulation is driven by an increase in metabolically active RPE KU-57788 mw tissue. This study was limited by its small sample size, its short follow-up period, and the use of only 1 laser system. Nevertheless, the setting is adequate to demonstrate the ability of polarization-sensitive SD-OCT to identify and automatically segment the retinal pigment epithelium in different stages of healing following photocoagulation, in contrast to current SD-OCT devices. Considering further development of minimal-damage photocoagulation, such as subthreshold or selective retinal treatment,28, 30 and 31 polarization-sensitive OCT is a new modality to investigate the therapeutically induced changes of defined retinal PF-06463922 mw layers in the human eye over time. All authors have completed and submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure also of Potential

Conflicts of Interest. M. Pircher, E. Götzinger, and C.K. Hitzenberger have received research

support from Canon, Tokyo, Japan. C.K. Hitzenberger has received lecture fees from National Institute of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. Publication of this article was financially supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF grant no. P19624-B02, Vienna, Austria) and the European Union (project FUN OCT, FP7 HEALTH, Contract No. 201880). The high-definition OCT system was provided by Heidelberg Engineering. Polarization-sensitive OCT was constructed and provided by the Center for Biomedical Engineering and Physics, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria. Contributions of authors: design and conduct of the study (J.L., M.B.); data collection (J.L., M.G.); management (J.L., M.B.); analysis and interpretation of the data (J.L., M.G.); design and construction of polarization-sensitive OCT device (B.B., M.P., E.G., C.H.); and review and approval of the manuscript (M.B., C.H., U.E.). The authors thank Ferdinand Schlanitz and Christopher Schütze for helping with recording the polarization-sensitive OCT images and Robert Blum for English proofreading. All three are members of the Department of Ophthalmology at the Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria. For further information on members and mission statement of the Diabetic Retinopathy Research Group (DRRG), Vienna, please visit: http://www.meduniwien.ac.