Intra-surgical optical coherence tomographic imaging of cataract procedures

1. A cataract surgical system, comprising:

a laser source, configured to generate a first set of laser pulses;

a guiding optic, coupled to the laser source, configured to guide the first set of laser pulses to a cataract target region in an eye;

a laser controller, configured

to generate an electronic representation of a target scan pattern, and

to control the guiding optic to scan the first set of laser pulses according to a portion of the target scan pattern to create a first photo-disrupted region in the cataract target region; and

a Swept-Source Optical Coherence Tomographic (SS-OCT) imaging system, configured to generate an image that includes a portion of the first photo-disrupted region with an image resolution in the range of 0.5-10 million image points per image and a frame-rate in the range of 20-500 frames/sec; wherein

the laser controller is configured

to generate an electronic representation of a modified scan pattern in relation to the image generated by the SS-OCT imaging system, and

to control the guiding optic to scan a second set of laser pulses according the modified scan pattern to create a second photo-disrupted region.

2. The cataract surgical system of claim 1 , wherein:

the Swept-Source Optical Coherence Tomographic (SS-OCT) imaging system is configured to generate the image that includes a portion of the first photo-disrupted region with an image resolution in the range of 0.5-2 million image points per image and a frame-rate in the range of 20-200 frames/sec.

3. The cataract surgical system of claim 1 , wherein:

the Swept-Source Optical Coherence Tomographic (SS-OCT) imaging system is configured to generate the image that includes a portion of the first photo-disrupted region with an image resolution in the range of 2-10 million image points per image and a frame-rate in the range of 25-500 frames/sec.

4. The cataract surgical system of claim 1 , wherein:

the Swept-Source Optical Coherence Tomographic (SS-OCT) imaging system is configured to generate the image that includes a portion of the first photo-disrupted region with a resolution in the range of 2,000-5,000 A-scans per B-scan.

5. The cataract surgical system of claim 1 , wherein:

the Swept-Source Optical Coherence Tomographic (SS-OCT) imaging system is configured to generate the image that includes a portion of the first photo-disrupted region with an A-scan acquisition rate of 30-300 kHz.

6. The cataract surgical system of claim 1 , wherein:

the Swept-Source Optical Coherence Tomographic (SS-OCT) imaging system is configured to generate the image that includes a portion of the first photo-disrupted region with an A-scan acquisition rate of 100-1,000 kHz.

7. The cataract surgical system of claim 1 , wherein:

the cataract target region comprises an anterior capsular layer; and

the target scan pattern comprises a set of target points on a cylinder to form at least one of a circular capsulotomy, an anterior capsulotomy, and a curvilinear capsulotomy.

8. The cataract surgical system of claim 1 , wherein:

the cataract target region comprises a portion of the lens; and

the target scan pattern comprises a set of target points on at least one of radial chop planes, cylinders, a spiral pattern and a mesh pattern to induce at least one of a chop, a photo-disruption and a lysis of the lens.

9. The cataract surgical system of claim 1 , wherein:

the SS-OCT imaging system is configured to have a z-imaging range greater than 4 mm.

10. The cataract surgical system of claim 1 , wherein:

the SS-OCT imaging system is configured to have a z-imaging range greater than 6 mm.

11. The cataract surgical system of claim 1 , wherein:

the SS-OCT imaging system is configured to generate the image in an imaging time less than 0.1 sec.

12. The cataract surgical system of claim 1 , the Swept-Source-OCT imaging system comprising:

a swept wavelength light source to generate a swept-wavelength beam;

a beam guidance system, configured to split the swept-wavelength beam into an image beam and a reference beam,

to guide the image beam to the eye and to guide a returned image beam from the eye,

to guide the reference beam to a reference mirror and to guide a returned reference beam from the reference mirror, and

to combine the returned image beam and the returned reference beam into a combined beam; and

an OCT camera, configured to receive the combined beam, comprising a detector to detect the combined beam;

a data binner to detect the combined beam as a time sequence of data;

a Fast-Fourier-Transform-system to Fourier transform the detected time sequence of data; and

an image generator to generate an image from the Fourier transform.

13. The cataract surgical system of claim 1 , wherein:

the laser controller is configured to generate the electronic representation of the modified target scan pattern according to a modification input received from the system operator in response to the system operator having analyzed the image of the portion of the first photo-disrupted region.

14. The cataract surgical laser system of claim 1 , wherein:

the SS-OCT imaging system is configured to display calibration marks to assist the system operator to calibrate a location of the first photo-disrupted region relative to the target scan pattern.