Quantitative analysis of the Stratus optical coherence tomography fast macular thickness map reports

The cross sectional optical coherence tomography images have an important role in evaluating retinal diseases. The reports generated by the Stratus fast macular thickness scan protocol are useful for both clinical and research purposes. The centerpoint thickness is an important outcome measure for many therapeutic trials related to macular disease. The data is susceptible to artifacts such as decentration and boundary line errors and could be potentially erroneous. An understanding of how the data is generated is essential before utilizing the data. This article describes the interpretation of the fast macular thickness map report, assessment of the quality of an optical coherence tomography image and identification of the artifacts that could influence the numeric data.