Liu Zhuolin, Hammer Daniel X
Division of Biomedical Physics (DBP), Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, MD 20993, USA.
Biomed Opt Express. 2025 Jul 17;16(8):3255-3269. doi: 10.1364/BOE.550936. eCollection 2025 Aug 1.
The human choriocapillaris (CC) plays an essential role in supporting the overlying photoreceptor and retinal pigment epithelial cells and in maintaining overall retinal health. Disruption of CC structure and function is implicated in many retinal diseases, including age-related macular degeneration. Despite recent advances in ophthalmic imaging technologies, a full understanding of disease mechanisms remains elusive due to the inability to visualize CC microstructure. Here, we present a 3.4 MHz adaptive optics-optical coherence tomography angiography (AO-OCTA) approach for mapping the human choriocapillaris at high resolution to address the primary limitations of existing methodologies for CC imaging. We optimized our AO-OCTA acquisition protocols and offered guidelines for performing AO-OCTA for vessel imaging. Our approach achieves high resolution and high contrast CC imaging with single volume acquisition that takes <1 second, allowing rapid montaging and quantification over a 34° field of view. The proposed AO-OCTA method offers a more complete view of the outer retinal neurovascular complex, opening tremendous opportunities to investigate chorioretinal diseases.
人脉络膜毛细血管（CC）在支持上方的光感受器和视网膜色素上皮细胞以及维持整体视网膜健康方面起着至关重要的作用。CC结构和功能的破坏与许多视网膜疾病有关，包括年龄相关性黄斑变性。尽管眼科成像技术最近取得了进展，但由于无法可视化CC微观结构，对疾病机制的全面理解仍然难以实现。在这里，我们提出了一种3.4兆赫兹自适应光学光学相干断层扫描血管造影（AO-OCTA）方法，用于高分辨率绘制人脉络膜毛细血管，以解决现有CC成像方法的主要局限性。我们优化了AO-OCTA采集协议，并提供了进行血管成像的AO-OCTA的指导方针。我们的方法通过单次容积采集实现了高分辨率和高对比度的CC成像，采集时间不到1秒，允许在34°视野内进行快速拼接和量化。所提出的AO-OCTA方法提供了更完整的视网膜外神经血管复合体视图，为研究脉络膜视网膜疾病带来了巨大机遇。
