Visibility of trabecular meshwork by standard and polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography

• Published in: Journal of biomedical optics Vol. 15; no. 6; p. 61705
• Main Authors: Yasuno, Yoshiaki, Yamanari, Masahiro, Kawana, Keisuke, Miura, Masahiro, Fukuda, Shinichi, Makita, Shuichi, Sakai, Shingo, Oshika, Tetsuro
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.11.2010
• Subjects: Adult; Equipment Design; Equipment Failure Analysis; Eyes; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Models, Biological; Models, Statistical; Optical Coherence Tomography; Pattern Recognition, Automated - methods; Polystyrene resins; Refractometry - instrumentation; Segments; Tomography, Optical Coherence - instrumentation; Trabecular Meshwork - anatomy & histology; Visibility; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1083-3668; 1560-2281; 1560-2281
• DOI: 10.1117/1.3499421

Polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) is known to be advantageous because of its additional tissue-specific contrast of the anterior eye. So far, this advantage has been shown only qualitatively. We evaluate the improved visibility afforded by 3-D PS corneal and anterior eye segment OCT (PS-CAS-OCT) in visualizing the trabecular meshwork (TM) based on statistical evidences. A total of 31 normal subjects participated in this study. The anterior eye segments of both the eyes of the subjects are scanned using a custom-made PS-CAS-OCT and the standard-scattering OCT (S-OCT) and polarization-sensitive phase-retardation OCT (P-OCT) images are obtained. Three graders grade the visibility of the TM using a four-leveled grading system. The intergrader agreement, intermodality differences, and interquadrant dependence of visibility are statistically examined. All three of three combinations of graders show substantial agreement in visibility with P-OCT (ρ = 0.74, 0.70, and 0.68, Spearman's correlation), while only one of three shows substantial agreement with S-OCT (ρ = 0.72). Significant dependence of the visibility on the modality (S-OCT versus P-OCT) and quadrants are found by the analysis of variance. A subsequent Wilcoxon signed-rank test reveals significantly improved visibility. PS-CAS-OCT may become a useful tool for screening angle-closure glaucoma.