Three-dimensional segmentation and depth-encoded visualization of choroidal vasculature using swept-source optical coherence tomography

The choroid provides nutritional support for the retinal pigment epithelium and photoreceptors. Choroidal dysfunction plays a major role in several of the most important causes of vision loss including age-related macular degeneration, myopic degeneration, and pachychoroid diseases such as central serous chorioretinopathy and polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy. We describe an imaging technique using depth-resolved swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT) that provides full-thickness three-dimensional (3D) visualization of choroidal anatomy including topographical features of individual vessels. Enrolled subjects with different clinical manifestations within the pachychoroid disease spectrum underwent 15 mm × 9 mm volume scans centered on the fovea. A fully automated method segmented the choroidal vessels using their hyporeflective lumens. Binarized choroidal vessels were rendered in a 3D viewer as a vascular network within a choroidal slab. The network of choroidal vessels was color depth-encoded with a reference to the Bruch’s membrane segmentation. Topographical features of the choroidal vasculature were characterized and compared with choroidal imaging obtained with indocyanine green angiography (ICGA) from the same subject. The en face SS-OCT projections of the larger choroid vessels closely resembled to that obtained with ICGA, with the automated SS-OCT approach proving additional depth-encoded 3D information. In 16 eyes with pachychoroid disease, the SS-OCT approach added clinically relevant structural details, including choroidal thickness and vessel depth, which the ICGA studies could not provide. Our technique appears to advance the in vivo visualization of the full-thickness choroid, successfully reveals the topographical features of choroidal vasculature, and shows potential for further quantitative analysis when compared with other choroidal imaging techniques. This improved visualization of choroidal vasculature and its 3D structure should provide an insight into choroid-related disease mechanisms as well as their responses to treatment. © 2021 by the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine.