Reproducibility of in-vivo OCT measured three-dimensional human lamina cribrosa microarchitecture

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 9; no. 4; p. e95526
• Main Authors: Wang, Bo, Nevins, Jessica E, Nadler, Zach, Wollstein, Gadi, Ishikawa, Hiroshi, Bilonick, Richard A, Kagemann, Larry, Sigal, Ian A, Grulkowski, Ireneusz, Liu, Jonathan J, Kraus, Martin, Lu, Chen D, Hornegger, Joachim, Fujimoto, James G, Schuman, Joel S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 01.04.2014; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adult; Analysis; Aspect ratio; Automation; Bioengineering; Biology and Life Sciences; Case-Control Studies; Computer architecture; Computer engineering; Computer science; Diagnostic systems; Electrical engineering; Engineering and Technology; Engineering schools; Glaucoma; Glaucoma - diagnosis; Glaucoma - pathology; Health care; Histology; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; Imaging, Three-Dimensional; Medical imaging; Medicine; Medicine and Health Sciences; Optic Disk - anatomy & histology; Optic Disk - pathology; Optic nerve; Optical Coherence Tomography; Optics; Reproducibility; Reproducibility of Results; Research and Analysis Methods; Segmentation; Studies; Tomography; Tomography, Optical Coherence; Pennsylvania; Pittsburgh Pennsylvania; United States > US; Massachusetts
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0095526

To determine the reproducibility of automated segmentation of the three-dimensional (3D) lamina cribrosa (LC) microarchitecture scanned in-vivo using optical coherence tomography (OCT). Thirty-nine eyes (8 healthy, 19 glaucoma suspects and 12 glaucoma) from 49 subjects were scanned twice using swept-source (SS-) OCT in a 3.5×3.5×3.64 mm (400×400×896 pixels) volume centered on the optic nerve head, with the focus readjusted after each scan. The LC was automatically segmented and analyzed for microarchitectural parameters, including pore diameter, pore diameter standard deviation (SD), pore aspect ratio, pore area, beam thickness, beam thickness SD, and beam thickness to pore diameter ratio. Reproducibility of the parameters was assessed by computing the imprecision of the parameters between the scans. The automated segmentation demonstrated excellent reproducibility. All LC microarchitecture parameters had an imprecision of less or equal to 4.2%. There was little variability in imprecision with respect to diagnostic category, although the method tends to show higher imprecision amongst healthy subjects. The proposed automated segmentation of the LC demonstrated high reproducibility for 3D LC parameters. This segmentation analysis tool will be useful for in-vivo studies of the LC.