Deep Learning-Based Automatic Detection of Ellipsoid Zone Loss in Spectral-Domain OCT for Hydroxychloroquine Retinal...

Retinal toxicity resulting from hydroxychloroquine use manifests photoreceptor loss and disruption of the ellipsoid zone (EZ) reflectivity band detectable on spectral-domain (SD) OCT imaging. This study investigated whether an automatic deep learning-based algorithm can detect and quantitate EZ loss on SD OCT images with an accuracy comparable with that of human annotations.

Retrospective analysis of data acquired in a prospective, single-center, case-control study.

Eighty-five patients (168 eyes) who were long-term hydroxychloroquine users (average exposure time, 14 ± 7.2 years).

A mask region-based convolutional neural network (M-RCNN) was implemented and trained on individual OCT B-scans. Scan-by-scan detections were aggregated to produce an en face map of EZ loss per 3-dimensional SD OCT volume image. To improve the accuracy and robustness of the EZ loss map, a dual network architecture was proposed that learns to detect EZ loss in parallel using horizontal (horizontal mask region-based convolutional neural network [M-RCNN_H]) and vertical (vertical mask region-based convolutional neural network [M-RCNN_V]) B-scans independently. To quantify accuracy, 10-fold cross-validation was performed.

Precision, recall, intersection over union (IOU), F1-score metrics, and measured total EZ loss area were compared against human grader annotations and with the determination of toxicity based on the recommended screening guidelines.

The combined projection network demonstrated the best overall performance: precision, 0.90 ± 0.09; recall, 0.88 ± 0.08; and F1 score, 0.89 ± 0.07. The combined model performed superiorly to the M-RCNN_H only model (precision, 0.79 ± 0.17; recall, 0.96 ± 0.04; IOU, 0.78 ± 0.15; and F1 score, 0.86 ± 0.12) and M-RCNN_V only model (precision, 0.71 ± 0.21; recall, 0.94 ± 0.06; IOU, 0.69 ± 0.21; and F1 score, 0.79 ± 0.16). The accuracy was comparable with the variability of human experts: precision, 0.85 ± 0.09; recall, 0.98 ± 0.01; IOU, 0.82 ± 0.12; and F1 score, 0.91 ± 0.06. Automatically generated en face EZ loss maps provide quantitative SD OCT metrics for accurate toxicity determination combined with other functional testing.

The algorithm can provide a fast, objective, automatic method for measuring areas with EZ loss and can serve as a quantitative assistance tool to screen patients for the presence and extent of toxicity.