Increased crystalline lens coverage in optical coherence tomography with oblique scanning and volume stitching

A three-dimensional optical coherence tomography (OCT) crystalline lens imaging method based on oblique scanning and image stitching is presented. The method was designed to increase OCT imaging volume of crystalline lens in vivo. A long-range swept-source (SS)-OCT imaging system, which can measure the entire anterior segment of eye in a single acquisition, is used to acquire one central volume and 4 extra volumes with different angles between optical axis of OCT instrument and the pupillary axis. The volumes are then stitched automatically by developed software. To show its effectiveness and verify its validity, we scanned the subjects before and after pupil dilation drops and compared the experimental results. By determining the number of voxels representing the signal from the crystalline lens in 3-D OCT images, our method can provide around 17% additional volumetric lens coverage compared with a regular imaging procedure. The proposed approach could be used clinically in early diagnosis of cortical cataract. Wider field of view offered by this method may facilitate more accurate lens biometry in its peripheral zones, which potentially contributes to understanding of lens shape modifications of the accommodating eye.