Patent Document ID: 5542422
Application ID: 08328901
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A system for in vivo inspection of ocular tissue, the system comprising: a light source producing a light; an optical system to deliver said light to a selected portion of the ocular tissue; a collection optical system to collect light scattered by said selected portion of the ocular tissue; a light detector responsive to said collection optical system to generate signals corresponding to said collected scattered light; an analyzer coupled to said light detector and constructed to analyze said signals, said analyzer generating a plurality of data points corresponding to the relative intensity of light scattered by scattering elements within said selected portion of the ocular tissue; and a curve fitter to fit said plurality of data points to a predetermined model representative of a light scattering process within the ocular tissue, said predetermined model having the following functional form: EQU C.sub.N (.tau.)=F*{(1-A.sub.s)*e.sup.-.tau./.tau..sbsp.f +A.sub.s *(1+C.sub.1 *.tau.+C.sub.2 *.tau..sup.2)}.sup.2 where F is amplitude to baseline ratio, .tau. is a time delay variable, .tau..sub.f is inversely proportional to the diffusivity of fast scatterers, and A.sub.s, C.sub.1, and C.sub.2 are coefficients that represent the cumulative effect of light scattered from slowly diffusing scatterers, immobile scatterers, and elements that give rise to nonexponential characteristics within the ocular tissue.