3D retinal vascular network from optical coherence tomography data

Abstract

The retinal vascular network is directly observable by non-invasive techniques, and changes of its status have been associated to retinal and cardiac pathologies. In order to infer on these changes, studies have been performed using 2D fundus images. However, measurements such as vessel tortuosity or bifurcation angle suffer from missing depth information. In this work we aim to consider the retinal vascular network in 3D as imaged by optical coherence tomography (OCT). We take advantage of proprietary software developed by our research group able to segment the vascular network from OCT fundus reference images (personal communication). This approach allows for the comparison between vessel and non-vessel A-scans and thus to highlight differences such as the hyper-reflectivity and the shadows casted by vessels. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.