Adaptive vessel tracing and segmentation in OCT enables the robust detection of wall-to-lumen ratio abnormalities in 5xFAD mice

Tobiloba Adejumo; Guangying Ma; Taeyoon Son; Tae-Hoon Kim; David Le; Albert K Dadzie; Shaiban Ahmed; Xincheng Yao

doi:10.1364/BOE.504317

Adaptive vessel tracing and segmentation in OCT enables the robust detection of wall-to-lumen ratio abnormalities in 5xFAD mice

Biomed Opt Express. 2023 Nov 20;14(12):6350-6360. doi: 10.1364/BOE.504317. eCollection 2023 Dec 1.

Authors

Tobiloba Adejumo¹, Guangying Ma¹, Taeyoon Son¹, Tae-Hoon Kim¹, David Le¹, Albert K Dadzie¹, Shaiban Ahmed¹, Xincheng Yao^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607, USA.
² Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL 60612, USA.

Abstract

The wall-to-lumen ratio (WLR) of retinal blood vessels promises a sensitive marker for the physiological assessment of eye conditions. However, in vivo measurement of vessel wall thickness and lumen diameter is still technically challenging, hindering the wide application of WLR in research and clinical settings. In this study, we demonstrate the feasibility of using optical coherence tomography (OCT) as one practical method for in vivo quantification of WLR in the retina. Based on three-dimensional vessel tracing, lateral en face and axial B-scan profiles of individual vessels were constructed. By employing adaptive depth segmentation that adjusts to the individual positions of each blood vessel for en face OCT projection, the vessel wall thickness and lumen diameter could be reliably quantified. A comparative study of control and 5xFAD mice confirmed WLR as a sensitive marker of the eye condition.

Abstract

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