Enhancement and labelling of OCT images

Abstract Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is a noninvasive technique for visualizing retinal cross-sections, assisting in diagnosing and monitoring retinal diseases. This study presents an effective OCT image noise reduction and segmentation method. Due to the high resolution of our primary image database, a visual comparison of filter performance was challenging. To address this, we utilized a high-noise image dataset from Duke University, enabling a better evaluation of noise reduction filters. Our method was compared against eight widely-used image filters, including Gaussian, Low pass,Wavelet domain filtering, Lee filter, Anisotropic diffusion, Bilateral filter, Total variational filter, and BM3D filter. Both visual and quantitative analyses were conducted using no-reference performance parameters, namely Gradient Magnitude Similarity Deviation (GMSD), Standard Deviation of Wavelet Coefficients (SDWC), Focus Measure with Tengrade Variance (FMTV), Perception-based Image Quality Evaluator (PIQE), and Visual Information Fidelity (VIF). The results demonstrated the superiority of our proposed filter in terms of noise reduction performance while maintaining the sharpness of retinal layers. Quantitative analysis revealed notable performance gains, including improvements of 63.27% to 83.24% with GMSD, consistent edge strength enhancement of 9.4% to 9.97% using SDWC, gains in image quality between 51.99% and 54.64% with FMTV, performance improvements ranging from 7.25% to 23.97% in terms of PIQE, and a substantial increase in performance varying from 16.31% to 27.69% when assessing the impact on retinal layer quality using VIF. Using the Kruskal-Wallis test, our proposed noise reduction method shows statistical significance for all quantitative parameters. Additionally, our clustering algorithm effectively separated the foreground, including retinal layers and vitreous detachment, from the background and identified an area representing the region between retinal layers where fluid accumulates. We’ve successfully achieved OCT image enhancement, along with distinct foreground and background segmentation.