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Updated: Dec 11, 2025
Evaluation of Capillary and Other Vessel Contribution to Macular Perfusion Density Measured with Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography
Published on: February 18, 2022
Characterization of the Three Distinct Retinal Capillary Plexuses Using Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography in
Qiujian Zhu1, Xiaoying Xing2, Mengyu Wang1
1Department of Ophthalmology, Lixiang Eye Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, China.
Purpose:
To segment and quantify three distinct retinal capillary plexuses using optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) in myopic eyes.
Methods:
We analyzed 96 eyes from 62 subjects with myopia (27.76 ± 7.05 years of age) and evaluated 30 normal eyes from 15 subjects (28.33 ± 3.13 years of age) for controls. En face OCTA images generated by AngioPlex (Carl Zeiss; Oberkochen, Germany) were manually segmented by the progressive matching method into superficial, middle, and deep capillary plexuses (SCPs, MCPs, and DCPs, respectively). Estimated positions for each plexus relative to the reference line were calculated. After strict artifact removal and magnification correction, vessel density (VD) and skeleton density (SD) analyses were performed on each capillary plexus.
Results:
Myopic eyes were divided into three groups according to their degree of myopia. We defined the relative estimated positions of the MCP outer boundary to the retinal pigment epithelium fit layer as MCP = -89.317 - 0.178 (central retinal thickness) - 0.580 (ganglion cell inner plexiform thickness); the DCP outer boundary was 38.48 ± 6.24 µm below the inner plexiform layer. VDs were significantly higher in the super-high myopia group than in the control and moderate myopia groups for the DCP (all P < 0.05). SDs in the SCPs were significantly lower in the high myopia and super-high myopia groups than in the control groups (all P < 0.001).
Conclusions:
With progressive matching, we segmented three capillary plexuses and defined the relative estimated positions of each capillary plexus to the reference line in myopic eyes. The VD of the DCP increased for more myopic eyes.
Translational Relevance:
Our study provides a visual method for OCTA image vascular segmentation for myopic eyes.
