Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography in Healthy Adult Subjects: Normative Values, Frequency, and Impact of Artifacts

Abstract

Aim: This cross-sectional study is aimed at identifying normative ocular coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) values in a cohort of healthy adult Jordanian individuals and assessing the prevalence of different image artifacts and their impact on quantitative OCTA measurements.

Materials and methods: One hundred and eighty-one eyes from 100 healthy participants were included in this study. All participants underwent a comprehensive ophthalmological examination including best corrected visual acuity, slit lamp examination, and dilated fundoscopy. Swept-source OCTA images were obtained and analyzed for all 181 eyes. We recorded vascularity measurements and analyzed the prevalence and effect of ten different artifacts on superficial and deep retinal and choriocapillaris layer images.

Results: Sixty-two percent of the participants were men (n = 62), and 38% (n = 38) were women. The age of participants ranged between 24 and 75 years (mean 50.5 ± 10.92). The mean central macular thickness was 237.71 (±22.905) μm, and the mean choroidal thickness was 257.73 (±77.027) μm. Artifacts were present in 46.4% of the acquired scans. Images with artifacts had higher mean age (p = 0.03), lower image quality (p < 0.001), higher central vascular density (p < 0.001), and lower inferior vascular density (p < 0.001) compared to artifact-free tomographs. Motion artifact was the most common type, which was present in 29 (16%) of images, followed by blink artifact 18 (9.9%), and Z offset 8 (4.4%).

Conclusion: OCTA artifact detection and correction remains a challenging aspect of the diagnostic and follow-up process of patients with retinal pathologies. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the association between OCTA outputs and artifacts in healthy eyes. We report that in this cohort of normal individuals, images with artifacts had a significantly higher central vascular density (22.62 vs. 16.60) and a lower inferior vascular density (46.09 vs. 48.81). We also found that a significant increase in central vascular density is only present in images with Z offset artifact type (49.03). Motion artifact was the most common artifact seen in our series. However, we observed no alteration in quantitative parameters in images with motion artifacts.