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Updated: May 30, 2026
Application of Optical Coherence Tomography to a Mouse Model of Retinopathy
Published on: January 12, 2022
Overcoming segmentation errors in measurements of macular thickness made by spectral-domain optical coherence
Yumi Song1, Byung Ro Lee, Yong Woon Shin
1Department of Ophthalmology, College of Medicine, Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea.
Purpose:
To assess the frequency and severity of segmentation errors in spectral-domain optical coherence tomography, and present an appropriate scan protocol for measuring macular thickness.
Methods:
In this study we examined 40 eyes of healthy subjects, 45 eyes with retinal pathology and 31 eyes with subretinal pathology. Patients were prospectively imaged using 12 radial scans and 3-dimensional macular cube scans by spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (3D OCT-1000; Topcon Corp., Japan) at the same sitting. Retinal segmentation errors were noted and graded using a subjective, categoric error scale to generate an error score. We compared the macular thickness measurements with and without error correction, and between the two scan protocols.
Results:
In this series, 63.8% of eyes (74 of 116 eyes) gave at least 1 segmentation error. Errors were more common in eyes with pathology. There was a significant difference between measurements of macular thickness with and without correcting these errors, regardless of scan protocol (P < 0.05). After error correction of both scan protocols, the macular thickness measurements obtained with the 12 radial scan protocol were equivalent to those obtained with the 3-dimensional macular cube scan protocol.
Conclusion:
Segmentation errors were frequent on scans obtained by spectral-domain optical coherence tomography. We recommend the 12 radial scan protocol with error correction as the standard protocol for measuring macular thickness, particularly in clinical studies.
