Choroidal Haller's and Sattler's layer thickness measurement using 3-dimensional 1060-nm optical coherence tomography

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 9; no. 6; p. e99690
• Main Authors: Esmaeelpour, Marieh, Kajic, Vedran, Zabihian, Behrooz, Othara, Richu, Ansari-Shahrezaei, Siamak, Kellner, Lukas, Krebs, Ilse, Nemetz, Susanne, Kraus, Martin F, Hornegger, Joachim, Fujimoto, James G, Drexler, Wolfgang, Binder, Susanne
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 09.06.2014; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adult; Age; Age factors; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Automation; Biomedical engineering; Blood pressure; Blood vessels; Case-Control Studies; Cataracts; Choroid - pathology; Computer engineering; Cross-Sectional Studies; Diabetes; Diabetes mellitus; Diabetic retinopathy; Eye; Feasibility studies; Female; Field of view; Health physics; Humans; Image processing; Image segmentation; Imaging, Three-Dimensional; Laser surgery; Macular degeneration; Macular Degeneration - pathology; Male; Mapping; Measurement; Medical imaging; Medicine and Health Sciences; Middle Aged; Ophthalmology; Optical Coherence Tomography; Pattern recognition; Physical Sciences; Physics; Reproducibility; Reproducibility of Results; Retinopathy; Statistical analysis; Statistical methods; Surgery; Thickness measurement; Tomography, Optical Coherence - methods; Young Adult; Bavaria Germany; Austria; Germany
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0099690

To examine the feasibility of automatically segmented choroidal vessels in three-dimensional (3D) 1060-nmOCT by testing repeatability in healthy and AMD eyes and by mapping Haller's and Sattler's layer thickness in healthy eyes. Fifty-five eyes (from 45 healthy subjects and 10 with non-neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) subjects) were imaged by 3D-1060-nmOCT over a 36°x36° field of view. Haller's and Sattler's layer were automatically segmented, mapped and averaged across the Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study grid. For ten AMD eyes and ten healthy eyes, imaging was repeated within the same session and on another day. Outcomes were the repeatability agreement of Haller's and Sattler's layer thicknesses in healthy and AMD eyes, the validation with ICGA and the statistical analysis of the effect of age and axial eye length (AL) on both healthy choroidal sublayers. The coefficients of repeatability for Sattler's and Haller's layers were 35% and 21% in healthy eyes and 44% and 31% in AMD eyes, respectively. The mean±SD healthy central submacular field thickness for Sattler's and Haller's was 87±56 µm and 141±50 µm, respectively, with a significant relationship for AL (P<.001). Automated Sattler's and Haller's thickness segmentation generates rapid 3D measurements with a repeatability corresponding to reported manual segmentation. Sublayers in healthy eyes thinned significantly with increasing AL. In the presence of the thinned Sattler's layer in AMD, careful measurement interpretation is needed. Automatic choroidal vascular layer mapping may help to explain if pathological choroidal thinning affects medium and large choroidal vasculature in addition to choriocapillaris loss.