Development of next generation low-cost OCT towards improved point-of-care retinal imaging

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Ophthalmology
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Low-cost optical coherence tomography (OCT) systems aim to broaden access to noninvasive retinal imaging, particularly in underserved regions.
• Previous low-cost OCT iterations faced limitations in performance and image quality.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a next-generation low-cost OCT system with enhanced performance capabilities.
• To present an image processing algorithm for improving retinal image quality.

Main Methods:

• The next-generation system incorporates balanced detection, improved spectrometer falloff correction, and an increased A-line rate of 40 kHz.
• A novel algorithm utilizing histogram matching was developed to enhance the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) of OCT images.
• Imaging performance was evaluated using CNR analysis on retinal OCT images acquired during a clinical trial.

Main Results:

• The enhanced low-cost OCT system demonstrated a significant improvement in image quality.
• Retinal macula images achieved a CNR of 2.01 ± 0.39 (p < 0.0001).
• The results indicate a substantial enhancement compared to previous low-cost OCT systems.

Conclusions:

• The presented next-generation low-cost OCT system offers superior performance for point-of-care retinal imaging.
• The developed image processing algorithm effectively improves image contrast and quality.
• This technology holds significant potential for increasing access to advanced retinal diagnostics in diverse healthcare settings.