RT Journal Article
A1 Baumann, Bernhard
A1 Schirmer, Johannes
A1 Rauscher, Sabine
A1 Fialová, Stanislava
A1 Glösmann, Martin
A1 Augustin, Marco
A1 Pircher, Michael
A1 Gröger, Marion
A1 Hitzenberger, Christoph K.
T1 Melanin Pigmentation in Rat Eyes: In Vivo Imaging by Polarization-Sensitive Optical Coherence Tomography and Comparison to Histology
JF Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science
JO Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci.
YR 2015
DO 10.1167/iovs.15-17742
VO 56
IS 12
SP 7462
OP 7472
SN 1552-5783
AB    The purpose of this study was to demonstrate polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) for imaging pigmented structures in the posterior eye segments of albino and pigmented rats and to correlate depolarization contrast of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and choroid in in vivo PS-OCT to melanin pigmentation detected in postmortem histologic serial sections.    In vivo three-dimensional PS-OCT imaging was performed in adult albino and pigmented rat eyes at 70-kHz A-line rate. Degree of polarization uniformity (DOPU) fundus maps and radial DOPU profiles were generated. Postmortem histomorphologic analysis was performed in order to investigate melanin pigmentation of the RPE and choroid. Fundus pigmentation maps were extracted from histologic serial sections. Pigmentation profiles were correlated to DOPU profiles of the same eyes.    Strong depolarization was found in the RPE/choroid complex of pigmented rats, whereas the same structures exhibited uniform polarization in albino rats. The difference between the depolarization characteristics between albino and pigmented animals was statistically significant. In the fundus pigmentation maps, optical pigment density was zero in albino rat eyes. In pigmented rat eyes, a strong negative correlation between optical pigment density and DOPU was observed.    This in vivo and ex vivo investigation of posterior rat eyes indicates that melanin is the cause of depolarization in retinal PS-OCT images. It further demonstrates that melanin pigmentation in the RPE and choroid can be quantified via depolarization imaging and therefore suggests that PS-OCT is a useful tool for the noninvasive quantitative assessment of pigmentary changes in vision-threatening diseases such as age-related macular degeneration.  
RD 3/4/2021
UL https://doi.org/10.1167/iovs.15-17742