Integrated deep learning framework for accelerated optical coherence tomography angiography

Improved microvascular imaging with optical coherence tomography using 3D neural networks and a channel attention mechanism

Skin microvasculature is vital for human cardiovascular health and thermoregulation, but its imaging and analysis presents significant challenges. Statistical methods such as speckle decorrelation in optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) often require multiple co-located B-scans, leading to lengthy acquisitions prone to motion artefacts. Deep learning has shown promise in enhancing accuracy and reducing measurement time by leveraging local information. However, both statistical and deep learning methods typically focus solely on processing individual 2D B-scans, neglecting contextual information from neighbouring B-scans. This limitation compromises spatial context and disregards the 3D features within tissue, potentially affecting OCTA image accuracy. In this study, we propose a novel approach utilising 3D convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to address this limitation. By considering the 3D spatial context, these 3D CNNs mitigate information loss, preserving fine details and boundaries in OCTA images. Our method reduces the required number of B-scans while enhancing accuracy, thereby increasing clinical applicability. This advancement holds promise for improving clinical practices and understanding skin microvascular dynamics crucial for cardiovascular health and thermoregulation.

Quantitative Characterization of Retinal Features in Translated OCTA

Purpose

This study explores the feasibility of using generative machine learning (ML) to translate Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) images into Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography (OCTA) images, potentially bypassing the need for specialized OCTA hardware.

Methods

The method involved implementing a generative adversarial network framework that includes a 2D vascular segmentation model and a 2D OCTA image translation model. The study utilizes a public dataset of 500 patients, divided into subsets based on resolution and disease status, to validate the quality of TR-OCTA images. The validation employs several quality and quantitative metrics to compare the translated images with ground truth OCTAs (GT-OCTA). We then quantitatively characterize vascular features generated in TR-OCTAs with GT-OCTAs to assess the feasibility of using TR-OCTA for objective disease diagnosis.

Result

TR-OCTAs showed high image quality in both 3 and 6 mm datasets (high-resolution, moderate structural similarity and contrast quality compared to GT-OCTAs). There were slight discrepancies in vascular metrics, especially in diseased patients. Blood vessel features like tortuosity and vessel perimeter index showed a better trend compared to density features which are affected by local vascular distortions.

Conclusion

This study presents a promising solution to the limitations of OCTA adoption in clinical practice by using vascular features from TR-OCTA for disease detection.

Translation relevance

This study has the potential to significantly enhance the diagnostic process for retinal diseases by making detailed vascular imaging more widely available and reducing dependency on costly OCTA equipment.

A hand-held optical coherence tomography angiography scanner based on angiography reconstruction transformer networks

Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) has successfully demonstrated its viability for clinical applications in dermatology. Due to the high optical scattering property of skin, extracting high-quality OCTA images from skin tissues requires at least six-repeated scans. While the motion artifacts from the patient and the free hand-held probe can lead to a low-quality OCTA image. Our deep-learning-based scan pipeline enables fast and high-quality OCTA imaging with 0.3-s data acquisition. We utilize a fast scanning protocol with a 60 μm/pixel spatial interval rate and introduce angiography-reconstruction-transformer (ART) for 4× super-resolution of low transverse resolution OCTA images. The ART outperforms state-of-the-art networks in OCTA image super-resolution and provides a lighter network size. ART can restore microvessels while reducing the processing time by 85%, and maintaining improvements in structural similarity and peak-signal-to-noise ratio. This study represents that ART can achieve fast and flexible skin OCTA imaging while maintaining image quality.

Using Artificial Intelligence to Analyse the Retinal Vascular Network: The Future of Cardiovascular Risk Assessment Based on Oculomics? A Narrative Review

The healthcare burden of cardiovascular diseases remains a major issue worldwide. Understanding the underlying mechanisms and improving identification of people with a higher risk profile of systemic vascular disease through noninvasive examinations is crucial. In ophthalmology, retinal vascular network imaging is simple and noninvasive and can provide in vivo information of the microstructure and vascular health. For more than 10 years, different research teams have been working on developing software to enable automatic analysis of the retinal vascular network from different imaging techniques (retinal fundus photographs, OCT angiography, adaptive optics, etc.) and to provide a description of the geometric characteristics of its arterial and venous components. Thus, the structure of retinal vessels could be considered a witness of the systemic vascular status. A new approach called "oculomics" using retinal image datasets and artificial intelligence algorithms recently increased the interest in retinal microvascular biomarkers. Despite the large volume of associated research, the role of retinal biomarkers in the screening, monitoring, or prediction of systemic vascular disease remains uncertain. A PubMed search was conducted until August 2022 and yielded relevant peer-reviewed articles based on a set of inclusion criteria. This literature review is intended to summarize the state of the art in oculomics and cardiovascular disease research.

Dynamic 3D imaging of cerebral blood flow in awake mice using self-supervised-learning-enhanced optical coherence Doppler tomography

Cerebral blood flow (CBF) is widely used to assess brain function. However, most preclinical CBF studies have been performed under anesthesia, which confounds findings. High spatiotemporal-resolution CBF imaging of awake animals is challenging due to motion artifacts and background noise, particularly for Doppler-based flow imaging. Here, we report ultrahigh-resolution optical coherence Doppler tomography (µODT) for 3D imaging of CBF velocity (CBFv) dynamics in awake mice by developing self-supervised deep-learning for effective image denoising and motion-artifact removal. We compare cortical CBFv in awake vs. anesthetized mice and their dynamic responses in arteriolar, venular and capillary networks to acute cocaine (1 mg/kg, i.v.), a highly addictive drug associated with neurovascular toxicity. Compared with awake, isoflurane (2-2.5%) induces vasodilation and increases CBFv within 2-4 min, whereas dexmedetomidine (0.025 mg/kg, i.p.) does not change vessel diameters nor flow. Acute cocaine decreases CBFv to the same extent in dexmedetomidine and awake states, whereas decreases are larger under isoflurane, suggesting that isoflurane-induced vasodilation might have facilitated detection of cocaine-induced vasoconstriction. Awake mice after chronic cocaine show severe vasoconstriction, CBFv decreases and vascular adaptations with extended diving arteriolar/venular vessels that prioritize blood supply to deeper cortical capillaries. The 3D imaging platform we present provides a powerful tool to study dynamic changes in vessel diameters and morphology alongside CBFv networks in the brain of awake animals that can advance our understanding of the effects of drugs and disease conditions (ischemia, tumors, wound healing).

Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography of the Intestine: How to Prevent Motion Artifacts in Open and Laparoscopic Surgery?

(1) Introduction. The problem that limits the intraoperative use of OCTA for the intestinal circulation diagnostics is the low informative value of OCTA images containing too many motion artifacts. The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficiency and safety of the developed unit for the prevention of the appearance of motion artifacts in the OCTA images of the intestine in both open and laparoscopic surgery in the experiment; (2) Methods. A high-speed spectral-domain multimodal optical coherence tomograph (IAP RAS, Russia) operating at a wavelength of 1310 nm with a spectral width of 100 μm and a power of 2 mW was used. The developed unit was tested in two groups of experimental animals—on minipigs (group I, n = 10, open abdomen) and on rabbits (group II, n = 10, laparoscopy). Acute mesenteric ischemia was modeled and then 1 h later the small intestine underwent OCTA evaluation. A total of 400 OCTA images of the intact and ischemic small intestine were obtained and analyzed. The quality of the obtained OCTA images was evaluated based on the score proposed in 2020 by the group of Magnin M. (3) Results. Without stabilization, OCTA images of the intestine tissues were informative only in 32–44% of cases in open surgery and in 14–22% of cases in laparoscopic surgery. A vacuum bowel stabilizer with a pressure deficit of 22–25 mm Hg significantly reduced the number of motion artifacts. As a result, the proportion of informative OCTA images in open surgery increased up to 86.5% (Χ2 = 200.2, p = 0.001), and in laparoscopy up to 60% (Χ2 = 148.3, p = 0.001). (4) Conclusions. The used vacuum tissue stabilizer enabled a significant increase in the proportion of informative OCTA images by significantly reducing the motion artifacts.

Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography Imaging

Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) and artificial intelligence (AI) are two emerging fields that complement each other. OCTA enables the noninvasive, in vivo, 3D visualization of retinal blood flow with a micrometer resolution, which has been impossible with other imaging modalities. As it does not need dye-based injections, it is also a safer procedure for patients. AI has excited great interest in many fields of daily life, by enabling automatic processing of huge amounts of data with a performance that greatly surpasses previous algorithms. It has been used in many breakthrough studies in recent years, such as the finding that AlphaGo can beat humans in the strategic board game of Go. This paper will give a short introduction into both fields and will then explore the manifold applications of AI in OCTA imaging that have been presented in the recent years. These range from signal generation over signal enhancement to interpretation tasks like segmentation and classification. In all these areas, AI-based algorithms have achieved state-of-the-art performance that has the potential to improve standard care in ophthalmology when integrated into the daily clinical routine.

Efficient Computer-Generated Holography Based on Mixed Linear Convolutional Neural Networks

Imaging based on computer-generated holography using traditional methods has the problems of poor quality and long calculation cycles. However, recently, the development of deep learning has provided new ideas for this problem. Here, an efficient computer-generated holography (ECGH) method is proposed for computational holographic imaging. This method can be used for computational holographic imaging based on mixed linear convolutional neural networks (MLCNN). By introducing fully connected layers in the network, the suggested design is more powerful and efficient at information mining and information exchange. Using the ECGH, the pure phase image required can be obtained after calculating the custom light field. Compared with traditional computed holography based on deep learning, the method used here can reduce the number of network parameters needed for network training by about two-thirds while obtaining a high-quality image in the reconstruction, and the network structure has the potential to solve various image-reconstruction problems.