Monte Carlo simulation of diabetic macular edema changes on optical coherence tomography data

Abstract

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans were acquired from healthy controls and patients with diabetic macular edema (DME), a common complication of diabetes characterized by increased retinal thickness due to fluid accumulation. The collected OCT data was divided into three distinct groups: healthy subjects, DME patients with significantly increased outer nuclear layer (ONL) thickness and DME patients without visible changes in the ONL. For each group, the ONL was segmented and processed, yielding a representative A-scan. Using reference values for the physical and optical characteristics of the healthy human retina, we used a Monte Carlo method with a model for the ONL to simulate an A-scan for each group and compare it to the real OCT data. This allowed to identify which alterations in the cellular characteristics are responsible for the changes observed in the OCT scans of the diseased groups.