Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography Imaging

Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) and artificial intelligence (AI) are two emerging fields that complement each other. OCTA enables the noninvasive, in vivo, 3D visualization of retinal blood flow with a micrometer resolution, which has been impossible with other imaging modalities. As it does not need dye-based injections, it is also a safer procedure for patients. AI has excited great interest in many fields of daily life, by enabling automatic processing of huge amounts of data with a performance that greatly surpasses previous algorithms. It has been used in many breakthrough studies in recent years, such as the finding that AlphaGo can beat humans in the strategic board game of Go. This paper will give a short introduction into both fields and will then explore the manifold applications of AI in OCTA imaging that have been presented in the recent years. These range from signal generation over signal enhancement to interpretation tasks like segmentation and classification. In all these areas, AI-based algorithms have achieved state-of-the-art performance that has the potential to improve standard care in ophthalmology when integrated into the daily clinical routine.