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Updated: Feb 25, 2026
Retinal Vascular Reactivity as Assessed by Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography
Published on: March 26, 2020
Optical coherence tomography angiography artifacts in retinal pigment epithelial detachment
Ricardo N Louzada1, Talisa E de Carlo2, Mehreen Adhi2
1New England Eye Center and Tufts Medical Center, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts; Federal University of Goiás, Goiás, Brazil.
Objective:
To describe optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) reflectance artifacts secondary to retinal pigment epithelial detachment (RPED).
Design:
Retrospective review.
Methods:
Four eyes from 4 subjects were included. Three presented with RPED and 1 eye was a normal control. Two eyes diagnosed with RPED and the normal eye were evaluated using en face OCTA centred at the fovea acquired using the RTVue XR Avanti (Optovue Inc). In the third eye with RPED, OCTA imaging was performed using a CIRRUS 5000 prototype modified to do OCTA imaging on a spectral domain OCT platform provided by Carl Zeiss Meditec, Inc. The segmented OCTA angiograms were overlaid to determine if the flow patterns seen at the edge of the RPEDs were due to reflectance from the inner retinal vessels, also known as "decorrelation tails."
Results:
OCTA projection artifacts were noted when segmentation lines intersected with the boundary of the RPED. The overlaid segmented OCTA from the 3 RPED eyes imaged using each system revealed the same vasculature pattern at the edges of the RPED as that of the inner retina, demonstrating the "decorrelation tails" artifact, which caused the RPED to appear as a bright ring on the segmented OCTA.
Conclusions:
OCTA images are susceptible to various known artifacts. This series describes the impact of the projection artifact seen at the edges of an RPED that simulates appearance of flow but is actually due to reflectance of the inner retinal vasculature on the RPED.
