A prediction model for ocular damage – Experimental validation

• We present an eye model which can predict ocular temperatures under laser irradiation.
• It is the first eye model which is validated.
• The validation includes long-term temperature measurements performed by a setup presented in this work.

With the increasing number of laser applications in medicine and technology, accidental as well as intentional exposure of the human eye to laser sources has become a major concern. Therefore, a prediction model for ocular damage (PMOD) is presented within this work and validated for long-term exposure. This model is a combination of a raytracing model with a thermodynamical model of the human and an application which determines the thermal damage by the implementation of the Arrhenius integral. The model is based on our earlier work and is here validated against temperature measurements taken with porcine eye samples. For this validation, three different powers were used: 50 mW, 100 mW and 200 mW with a spot size of 1.9 mm. Also, the measurements were taken with two different sensing systems, an infrared camera and a fibre optic probe placed within the tissue. The temperatures were measured up to 60 s and then compared against simulations. The measured temperatures were found to be in good agreement with the values predicted by the PMOD-model. To our best knowledge, this is the first model which is validated for both short-term and long-term irradiations in terms of temperature and thus demonstrates that temperatures can be accurately predicted within the thermal damage regime.