Wide-Angle Panoret Camera for LOOC Patients

Thanks to our benefactors, LOOC now has a wide-angle camera for imaging tumours at the back of the eye. This camera greatly enhances patient care by enabling us to perform more detailed ocular examination.

Unlike conventional cameras, this equipment provides panoramic images, which capture the entire margins of large tumours, including areas beyond the reach of standard devices. For example, the photograph shown here is of choroidal melanoma of the left eye, which was successfully treated with a ruthenium radioactive plaque. One can see the white radiational changes completely surrounding the regressed melanoma. The optic nerve and fovea are healthy so that the patient continues to enjoy good vision. The panoramic photograph makes it easier for us to recognize any tumour re-growth, preventing treatment delay.

The Panoret camera is highly advanced technologically and has only recently been developed. The system at LOOC is the first to be installed in the UK and one of the first ten in use worldwide.

Our Panoret camera, which cost us over £45,000, was funded entirely with donations from grateful patients, relatives and other benefactors, to whom we are very grateful. The use of our Eye Tumour Research Fund for this purpose was authorised by the Charitable Funds Committee of the Royal Liverpool University Hospital.

The Panoret camera greatly increases our ability to plan eye-preserving treatment and to ensure that there is satisfactory tumour shrinkage afterwards. The panoramic images provided by our new camera also enhance our lectures and scientific publications, so that we can share our experience with others, thereby improving patient care in other parts of the world.