Cynthia Ann Toth MD

Dr. Cynthia Ann Toth specializes in the evaluation and surgical treatment of vitreoretinal diseases in infants, children, and adults, and in novel research resulting in the clinical application of optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging in surgery and at the bedside. Her clinical interests and skills include the surgical treatment of macular diseases (such as a macular hole, epiretinal membrane, and vitreomacular traction), retinal detachment, proliferative diabetic retinopathy, proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR), and retinopathy of prematurity (ROP).

Dr. Toth is a world expert in retinal imaging with optical coherence tomography (OCT) and pioneered both the first use of a research hand-held spectral domain OCT system for infant examination and the first intraoperative OCT-guided ophthalmic surgical system.

For infants and children, Dr. Toth's multidisciplinary team has demonstrated novel eye findings that are visible only with OCT imaging and that are often associated with brain disease or challenges of brain development. In surgery, Dr. Toth performed the world's first intraoperative OCT imaging and the first swept-source OCT imaging with a heads-up display during retinal surgery. With colleagues in the Duke Eye Center and in Biomedical Engineering, she perfected such techniques. She has been repeatedly honored among the Best Doctors in America.

Dr. Toth is also a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Pratt School of Engineering. Her primary research interests are in translational research and early-application clinical trials with a focus on novel retinal imaging with spectral domain and swept-source optical coherence tomography (SD and SSOCT).

Dr. Toth's Laboratory, the Duke Advanced Research in Spectral Domain/Swept Source OCT Imaging (DARSI) Laboratory centers on improving early diagnostic methods, imaging biomarkers, and therapies for both age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and retinal diseases in children. Sina Farsiu, PhD, has collaborated to provide advanced image processing for OCT within the DARSI Laboratory. In collaboration with Joseph Izatt, Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering, the DARSI team is currently applying OCT to the diagnosis and care of retinal diseases especially in microsurgery in adults and in children in several studies including NIH-funded investigations.