Retinal pulse wave velocity measurement using spectral‐domain optical coherence tomography

• Published in: Journal of biophotonics Vol. 11; no. 2
• Main Authors: Li, Qian, Li, Lin, Fan, Shanhui, Dai, Cuixia, Chai, Xinyu, Zhou, Chuanqing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Weinheim WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA 01.02.2018; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Adult; Arteries; Biomechanical Phenomena; Blood pressure; Doppler effect; Eye (anatomy); Human subjects; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; Male; Optical Coherence Tomography; Pulse Wave Analysis; pulse wave velocity; Retina; Retinal Artery - diagnostic imaging; Retinal Artery - physiology; retinal vessels; Scanning; Stiffness; Tomography; Tomography, Optical Coherence; Transit time; Vascular diseases; vascular stiffness; Veins - diagnostic imaging; Veins - physiology; Velocity; Velocity measurement; Wave velocity; vascular stiffness; Doppler effect; pulse wave velocity; optical coherence tomography; retinal vessels
• ISSN: 1864-063X; 1864-0648; 1864-0648
• DOI: 10.1002/jbio.201700163

The human eyes provide a natural window for noninvasive measurement of the pulse wave velocity (PWV) of small arteries. By measuring the retinal PWV, the stiffness of small arteries can be assessed, which may better detect early vascular diseases. Therefore, retinal PWV measurement has attracted increasing attention. In this study, a jump‐scanning method was proposed for noninvasive measurement of retinal PWV using spectral‐domain optical coherence tomography (SD‐OCT). The jump‐scanning method uses the phase‐resolved Doppler OCT to obtain the pulse shapes. To realize PWV measurement, the jump‐scanning method extracts the transit time of the pulse wave from an original OCT scanning site to another through a transient jump. The measured retinal arterial PWV of a young human subject with normal blood pressure was in the order of 20 to 30 mm/s, which was consistent with previous studies. As a comparison, PWV of 50 mm/s was measured for a young human subject with prehypertension, which was in accordance with the finding of strong association between retinal PWV and blood pressure. In summary, it is believed the proposed jump‐scanning method could benefit the research and diagnosis of vascular diseases through the window of human eyes. A jump‐scanning method is proposed for measurement of retinal pulse wave velocity (PWV) using spectral‐domain optical coherence tomography (SD‐OCT). The method was performed on young human subjects with normal blood pressure and with prehypertension. The measured retinal PWV of the subject with prehypertension was higher than the subject with normal blood pressure. The combination of the jump‐scanning method and SD‐OCT could benefit the research of arterial biomechanics through human eyes.