Validated automatic segmentation of AMD pathology including drusen and geographic atrophy in SD-OCT images.
OBJECTIVE
To automatically segment retinal spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) images of eyes with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and various levels of image quality to advance the study of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE)+drusen complex (RPEDC) volume changes indicative of AMD progression.


METHODS
A general segmentation framework based on graph theory and dynamic programming was used to segment three retinal boundaries in SD-OCT images of eyes with drusen and geographic atrophy (GA). A validation study for eyes with nonneovascular AMD was conducted, forming subgroups based on scan quality and presence of GA. To test for accuracy, the layer thickness results from two certified graders were compared against automatic segmentation results for 220 B-scans across 20 patients. For reproducibility, automatic layer volumes were compared that were generated from 0° versus 90° scans in five volumes with drusen.


RESULTS
The mean differences in the measured thicknesses of the total retina and RPEDC layers were 4.2 ± 2.8 and 3.2 ± 2.6 μm for automatic versus manual segmentation. When the 0° and 90° datasets were compared, the mean differences in the calculated total retina and RPEDC volumes were 0.28% ± 0.28% and 1.60% ± 1.57%, respectively. The average segmentation time per image was 1.7 seconds automatically versus 3.5 minutes manually.


CONCLUSIONS
The automatic algorithm accurately and reproducibly segmented three retinal boundaries in images containing drusen and GA. This automatic approach can reduce time and labor costs and yield objective measurements that potentially reveal quantitative RPE changes in longitudinal clinical AMD studies. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00734487.).
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA. stephanie.chiu@duke.edu
Stephanie J
SJ
Chiu
Joseph A
JA
Izatt
Rachelle V
RV
O'Connell
Katrina P
KP
Winter
Cynthia A
CA
Toth
Sina
S
Farsiu
D000465:Algorithms; D018450:Disease Progression; D057092:Geographic Atrophy / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D008268:Macular Degeneration / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D015593:Retinal Drusen / Q000473:pathology*; D055213:Retinal Pigment Epithelium / Q000473:pathology*; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence