Projection artifacts are a significant limitation of optical coherence tomographic angiography (OCTA). Existing techniques to suppress these artifacts are sensitive to image quality, becoming less reliable on low-quality images. In this study, we propose a novel signal attenuation-compensated projection-resolved OCTA (sacPR-OCTA) algorithm. In addition to removing projection artifacts, our method compensates for shadows beneath large vessels. The proposed sacPR-OCTA algorithm improves vascular continuity, reduces the similarity of vascular patterns in different plexuses, and removes more residual artifacts compared to existing methods. In addition, the sacPR-OCTA algorithm better preserves flow signal in choroidal neovascular lesions and shadow-affected areas. Because sacPR-OCTA processes the data along normalized A-lines, it provides a general solution for removing projection artifacts agnostic to the platform.
© 2023 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement.