Artifacts in optical coherence tomography

Abstract

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is now an integral part of management for numerous retinal diseases for diagnosis, treatment planning and follow up. OCT interpretation must involve the understanding of the associated artifacts. These artifacts can mislead physicians to wrong diagnosis or inappropriate management. This review article discusses the various types of artifacts in OCT scans obtained from various devices in various retinal diseases. This article would help to improve the understanding about the various artifacts and their clinical importance.

Early inner retinal thinning and cardiovascular autonomic dysfunction in type 2 diabetes

“…However, the presence of DR may result in potential errors in OCT measurements, such as misidentification of the outer layer and off-center artifacts. [43] Finally, causal relationships cannot be inferred, such that the results of our cross-sectional study should be interpreted with caution.…”

Classification of image artefacts in optical coherence tomography angiography of the choroid in macular diseases

“…Errors in cross-sectional images and OCT reflectivity maps (OCTR) may result from patient-and operator-related factors that affects transverse and volume scan qualities. [22][23][24] These include media opacity or poor ocular surface leading to image degradation, eye and eyelid movement during acquisition causing motion and blink artefacts, and misalignment of the camera relative to the eye and visual axis creating truncation and inversion of B-scans as well as decentration of imaging area. These artefacts make a significant contribution to error in automated segmentation analysis and test-retest variability of total and sublayer thickness of the neuroretina.…”

A New Idea of Fast Three-Dimensional Median Filtering for Despeckling of Optical Coherence Tomography Images

“…where J denotes noise-free image, η -white noise with zero mean and a certain distribution, p = (x, y, z) is , log(I(p)) = log(J(p)) + log(1 + η(p)), (2) can be written as…”

“…They are both the source of noise and the carrier of information about material structure. This phenomenon is an inherent part of all images acquired by narrow band systems and thus present both in ultrasound, RADAR and OCT devices [1,2,4,14]. Speckle noise influences the visual assessment of optical coherence tomography (OCT) images, affects detected boundaries of internal layers and therefore reduces diagnostic importance of acquired image data in medicine, biology or industrial applications.…”