Purpose
To investigate the relationships between the retinal layer intensities, the subject age and the image quality in spectral domain optical coherence tomograhy (SD-OCT).
Methods
Forty normal subjects were included and underwent macular-centered SD-OCT (Topcon, 512×64×480 voxels, 11.72×93.75×3.50µm3). Retinal layer intensity ratioswas achieved as follows. First, eleven surfaces were automatically segmented using the 3D graph search approach [1]. Second, the top region (above the surface 1) was considered as vitreous region, the layer between the surface 1 and 2 was retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL), and the sub-volume between surface 7 and 11 was considered as photoreceptor and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) layer.Then the mean of intensity of these layer was calculated, and the ratio of vitreous/RNFL and vitreous/RPE was computed. The statistical correlation analysis was performed between the ratios versus the quality of the image, and the ratios versus the subject age.
Results
The ratio of vitreous/RPE was strong correlated with the quality of the image (R2=0.617), however, the ratio was found to be not strong correlated with the subject age(R2=0.015) (Fig 1).
Conclusions
Automated estimation of the layer intensity ratio has been achieved. Though this pilot study concerned Topcon scans, the algorithm can be applied to SD-OCT images from other manufacturers. And In this dataset, the intensity of the layer was found to be strong correlated with image quality but not subject age.
Keywords: 549 image processing •
550 imaging/image analysis: clinical •
551 imaging/image analysis: non-clinical