Development of polarisation-sensitive optical coherence tomography for application in medical diagnosis

Since diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular diseases change the microstructure of the blood vessel walls even at very early stages, measuring these changes can potentially provide invaluable diagnostic information for the early detection of the disease. Polarisation-sensitive optical coherence tomography has the ability to measure these microstructural changes through non-invasive optical imaging of the eye since the vasculature of the retina shares common characteristics with the vasculature of the heart. In this thesis, the methods behind extracting the polarisation properties of the retinal blood vessel walls and the application of PS-OCT for the diagnosis of hypertension and diabetes are described.