Patent ID: 7878651

Claim:
A method for determining the shape of the front surface of the cornea using an optical coherence tomography (OCT) system, the OCT system including a light source generating a light beam, a sample arm, a reference arm and a detection arm, the method comprising the steps of: scanning the eye with the light beam; simultaneously collecting light specularly reflected from the anterior surface of the cornea and diffusely reflected light from interior portions of the cornea and interfering the collected light with light from the reference arm and generating output signals in response to the interfered light, said collecting step being performed at a plurality of light beam scan positions; processing the output signals corresponding to the specularly reflected light to determine the shape of the anterior corneal surface, and processing the output signals corresponding to the diffusely reflected light to determine the shape of the posterior corneal surface and wherein the processing of the output signals corresponding to the specularly reflected light to determine the shape of the anterior corneal surface includes an adjustment to correct for an apparent displacement of the anterior corneal surface said adjustment being based on the slope of the anterior corneal surface with respect to the light beam; and displaying the results.