Visualizing choriocapillaris using swept-source optical coherence tomography angiography with various probe beam sizes

Imaging choriocapillaris (CC) is a long-term challenge for commercial OCT angiography (OCTA) systems due to limited transverse resolution. Effects of transverse resolution on the visualization of a CC microvascular network are explored and demonstrated in this paper. We use three probe beams with sizes of ~1.12 mm, ~2.51 mm and ~3.50 mm at the pupil plane, which deliver an estimated transverse resolution at the retina of 17.5 µm, 8.8 µm and 7.0 µm, respectively, to investigate the ability of OCTA to resolve the CC capillary vessels. The complex optical microangiography algorithm is applied to extract blood flow in the CC slab. Mean retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) to CC (RPE-CC) distance, mean CC inter-vascular spacing and the magnitude in the radially-averaged power spectrum are quantified. We demonstrate that a clearer CC lobular capillary network is resolved in the angiograms provided by a larger beam size. The image contrast of the CC angiogram with a large beam size of 3.50 mm is 114% higher than that with a small beam size of 1.12 mm. While the measurements of the mean RPE-CC distance and CC inter-vascular spacing are almost consistent regardless of the beam sizes, they are more reliable and stable with the larger beam size of 3.50 mm. We conclude that the beam size is a key parameter for CC angiography if the purpose of the investigation is to visualize the individual CC capillaries.