Sub-Second Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography Protocol for Intraoral Imaging Using an Efficient Super-Resolution Network

This study introduces a 200 kHz swept-source optical coherence tomography system-based fast optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) protocol for intraoral imaging by integrating an efficient Intraoral Micro-Angiography Super-Resolution Transformer (IMAST) model. This protocol reduces acquisition time to ~0.3 s by reducing the spatial sampling resolution, thereby minimizing motion artifacts while maintaining a field of view and image quality. The IMAST model utilizes a transformer-based architecture combined with convolutional operations to reconstruct high-resolution intraoral OCTA images from reduced-resolution scans. Experimental results from various intraoral sites and conditions show the model's robustness and high performance in enhancing image quality compared to existing deep-learning methods. Besides, IMAST shows advantages in model complexity, inference time, and computational cost, underscoring its suitability for clinical environments. These findings support the potential of our approach for noninvasive oral disease diagnosis, reducing patient discomfort and facilitating early detection of malignancies, thus serving as a valuable tool for oral assessment.