Tissue discrimination in anterior eye using three optical parameters obtained by polarization sensitive optical...

Area of Science:

• Ophthalmic imaging
• Biomedical optics
• Histopathology

Background:

• Accurate tissue discrimination is crucial for ophthalmic diagnostics and research.
• Polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) offers unique optical property information for tissue differentiation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a PS-OCT-based algorithm for discriminating tissues in the human anterior eye segment.
• To assess the algorithm's capability in segmenting tissues based on optical properties.

Main Methods:

• Calculation of a 3D feature vector using intensity, extinction coefficient, and birefringence from PS-OCT data.
• Tissue classification based on the feature vector's position within a 3D feature space.
• Application and validation using human anterior eye and porcine eye samples with histological correlation.

Main Results:

• Successful discrimination and visualization of conjunctiva, sclera, trabecular meshwork (TM), cornea, and uvea with good contrast.
• Observation of the TM line within the 3D discriminated volume, comparable to gonioscopy findings.
• Accurate segmentation of tissues anterior and posterior to an injected marker in porcine eyes.

Conclusions:

• The developed PS-OCT algorithm effectively discriminates human anterior eye tissues based on optical properties.
• The algorithm demonstrates potential for in vivo ophthalmic imaging and research applications.
• Validation in porcine eyes confirms the algorithm's robustness for tissue segmentation.