Reliability and reproducibility of spectral and time domain optical coherence tomography images before and after correction for patients with age-related macular degeneration.

PURPOSE

To evaluate the reproducibility and reliability of optical coherence tomography scans obtained using the time domain (TD-OCT) Stratus (TM) OCT, and the Spectral Domain (SD-OCT) Spectralis (TM) and Cirrus (TM) OCT devices before and after manual correction in eyes with either Neovascular (NV-AMD) or Non-Neovascular (NNV-AMD) age-related macular degeneration.

DESIGN

Prospective observational study.

SETTING

University-based retina practice.

PATIENTS

Thirty-six patients (50 eyes) with NV-AMD or NNV-AMD.

PROCEDURE

OCT scans were taken simultaneously using one TD-OCT and two SD-OCT devices.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Macular thickness measurements were assessed before and after correction of the algorithm by constructing Bland-Altman plots for agreement and calculating intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) and coefficients of repeatability (COR) to evaluate intraclass repeatability.

RESULTS

Spectralis had the highest number of images needing manual correction.  All machines had high ICCs, with Spectralis having the highest.  Also, Bland-Altman plots indicated that there was low agreement between Cirrus™ and Stratus™, Spectralis™ and Stratus™, while there was good agreement between the Cirrus™ and Spectralis™.  The CORs were lowest for Spectralis (TM) and similar and higher for Cirrus (TM) and Stratus (TM).  Agreement, CORs, and ICCs generally improved after manual correction, but only minimally.

CONCLUSION

Agreement is low between devices, except between both SD-OCT machines.  Manual correction tends to improve results.