title: Wide-field retinal optical coherence tomography with wavefront sensorless adaptive optics for enhanced imaging of targeted regions.
abstract: The peripheral retina of the human eye offers a unique opportunity for assessment and monitoring of ocular diseases. We have developed a novel wide-field (>70°) optical coherence tomography system (WF-OCT) equipped with wavefront sensorless adaptive optics (WSAO) for enhancing the visualization of smaller (<25°) targeted regions in the peripheral retina. We iterated the WSAO algorithm at the speed of individual OCT B-scans (~20 ms) by using raw spectral interferograms to calculate the optimization metric. Our WSAO approach with a 3 mm beam diameter permitted primarily low- but also high- order peripheral wavefront correction in less than 10 seconds. In preliminary imaging studies in five normal human subjects, we quantified statistically significant changes with WSAO correction, corresponding to a 10.4% improvement in average pixel brightness (signal) and 7.0% improvement in high frequency content (resolution) when visualizing 1 mm (~3.5°) B-scans of the peripheral (>23°) retina. We demonstrated the ability of our WF-OCT system to acquire non wavefront-corrected wide-field images rapidly, which could then be used to locate regions of interest, zoom into targeted features, and visualize the same region at different time points. A pilot clinical study was conducted on seven healthy volunteers and two subjects with prodromal Alzheimer's disease which illustrated the capability to image Drusen-like pathologies as far as 32.5° from the fovea in un-averaged volume scans. This work suggests that the proposed combination of WF-OCT and WSAO may find applications in the diagnosis and treatment of ocular, and potentially neurodegenerative, diseases of the peripheral retina, including diabetes and Alzheimer's disease.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, 136 Hudson Hall, Box 90281, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Polans
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, 136 Hudson Hall, Box 90281, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA.
authors.forename: Brenton
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Keller
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, 136 Hudson Hall, Box 90281, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA.
authors.forename: Oscar M
authors.initials: OM
authors.lastname: Carrasco-Zevallos
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, 136 Hudson Hall, Box 90281, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA.
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: LaRocca
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, 136 Hudson Hall, Box 90281, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA.
authors.forename: Elijah
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Cole
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710, USA; Department of Medicine (Geriatrics)/Duke Aging Center, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710, USA; Geriatrics Research Education & Clinical Center, Durham VA Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27705, USA.
authors.forename: Heather E
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Whitson
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710, USA.
authors.forename: Eleonora M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Lad
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, 136 Hudson Hall, Box 90281, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA; Department of Ophthalmology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710, USA.
authors.forename: Sina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Farsiu
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, 136 Hudson Hall, Box 90281, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA; Department of Ophthalmology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710, USA.
authors.forename: Joseph A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Izatt
keywords: (170.4470) Ophthalmology; (170.4500) Optical coherence tomography; (330.4060) Vision modeling; (330.4460) Ophthalmic optics and devices; (330.7326) Visual optics, modeling; (330.7327) Visual optics, ophthalmic instrumentation