Repeatability of in vivo 3D lamina cribrosa microarchitecture using adaptive optics spectral domain optical coherence tomography

Zach Nadler,Jessica E Nevins,Richard Bilonick,Ian A Sigal,Gadi Wollstein,Hiroshi Ishikawa,R Daniel Ferguson,Bo Wang,Joel S Schuman,Daniel X Hammer,Ankit Patel,Larry Kagemann

doi:10.1364/boe.5.001114

Abstract

We demonstrate the repeatability of lamina cribrosa (LC) microarchitecture for in vivo 3D optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans of healthy, glaucoma suspects, and glaucomatous eyes. Eyes underwent two scans using a prototype adaptive optics spectral domain OCT (AO-SDOCT) device from which LC microarchitecture was semi-automatically segmented. LC segmentations were used to quantify pore and beam structure through several global microarchitecture parameters. Repeatability of LC microarchitecture was assessed qualitatively and quantitatively by calculating parameter imprecision. For all but one parameters (pore volume) measurement imprecision was <4.7% of the mean value, indicating good measurement reproducibility. Imprecision ranged between 27.3% and 54.5% of the population standard deviation for each parameter, while there was not a significant effect on imprecision due to disease status, indicating utility in testing for LC structural trends.

Highlights

The lamina cribrosa (LC) is a collagen based meshwork structure within the optic nerve head (ONH) and is the supportive tissue surrounding retinal nerve fibers as they exit the eye [1]
This study was designed to test the repeatability of 3D LC microarchitecture measurements derived from adaptive optics (AO)-SDOCT scans in healthy and glaucomatous eyes
Previous work using the SS-Optical coherence tomography (OCT) with the automated segmentation algorithm showed high precision for the structural quantification method for select global parameters, but differences in the underlying technology, and observed variation in segmentation performance necessitate a thorough study to validate the repeatability of the method using AO-SDOCT [19,25]

Summary

Introduction

The lamina cribrosa (LC) is a collagen based meshwork structure within the optic nerve head (ONH) and is the supportive tissue surrounding retinal nerve fibers as they exit the eye [1]. It is thought to play an important role in the pathogenesis of glaucoma, which is an optic neuropathy marked by irreversible loss of the retinal ganglion cells. This loss is associated with functional visual defect and is the second leading cause of blindness worldwide [2]. OCT studies of glaucoma commonly focus on retinal nerve fiber layer thickness [3,4,5], as well as the thickness of other retinal layers [4,6,7,8], and more recently the anterior lamina surface in the ONH and LC thickness [9,10], while CSLO primarily targets ONH topography [11,12,13] and more recently LC pore and beam structure using adaptive optics (AO) [14,15,16]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion