Edible oil based optical clearing for optical coherence tomography angiography imaging

Area of Science:

• Optical imaging
• Biomedical optics
• Medical imaging analysis

Background:

• Optical clearing agents (OCAs) are vital for improving structural details in optical imaging.
• Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) is a key technique for visualizing vascular networks.
• Enhancing OCTA data quality remains an important goal in biomedical imaging.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the efficacy of a natural edible oil as an optical clearing agent for OCTA.
• To assess the impact of this edible OCA on in vivo vascular imaging in mice and humans.
• To quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate the improvements in OCTA data using computational methods.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a natural, edible oil as an optical clearing agent.
• Conducted in vivo OCTA imaging on mice and human subjects.
• Employed computational techniques to analyze angiography signal improvements.
• Performed qualitative and quantitative assessments of vascular data.

Main Results:

• The edible oil demonstrated excellent optical clearing properties in vivo.
• OCTA imaging with the edible OCA showed a significant improvement in vessel percentage.
• Refined vascular signal intensity along depth was observed compared to control groups.
• Computational analysis confirmed enhanced angiography signal quality.

Conclusions:

• Natural edible oils can serve as effective and safe optical clearing agents for OCTA.
• The application of this edible OCA significantly enhances vascular visualization in OCTA.
• This approach offers a promising, non-chemical method for improving OCTA data acquisition and analysis.