Dual acquisition scheme-based optical coherence tomography 3D angiography.

Abstract

Significance: Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) is a noninvasive technique dedicated to high-resolution microvasculature imaging. However, the projection artifacts of large pial vessels make it difficult to visualize the underlying microvessels, challenging its 3D vascular imaging ability.

Aim: We propose a dual acquisition scheme-based 3D OCTA method aimed at simultaneously mitigating projection artifacts and enhancing the detection of capillary networks.

Approach: In this study, we introduce an approach incorporating a dual data acquisition scheme with optimally oriented flux (OOF) filtering to address this problem. The repeated A-scan acquisition scheme and corresponding data processing algorithm were used to address the projection artifact issue underneath large pial vessels, whereas repeated B-scan acquisition-based data processing was used to image the capillary network.

Results: With such a processing scheme, the projection artifacts can be effectively suppressed, whereas the high detection sensitivity to small vessels of repeat B-scan OCTA can be preserved, thus enabling high-sensitivity 3D imaging of the cerebral vasculature after OOF filtering.

Conclusions: The results demonstrate the capability of the proposed method for 3D OCTA imaging, which may play an important role in cerebral microvascular dysfunction-related disease studies.