Registration of SD-OCT en-face images with color fundus photographs based on local patch matching

Registration of multi-modal retinal images is very significant to integrate information gained from different modalities for a reliable diagnosis of retinal diseases by ophthalmologists. However, accurate image registration is a challenging, we propose an algorithm for registration of summed-voxel projection images (SVPIs) with color fundus photographs (CFPs) based on local patch matching. SVPIs are evenly split into 16 local image blocks for extracting matching point pairs by searching local maximization of the similarity function. These matching point pairs are used for a coarse registration and then a search region of feature matching points is redefined for a more accurate registration. The performance of our registration algorithm is tested on a series of datasets including 3 normal eyes and 20 eyes with age-related macular degeneration. The experiment demonstrates that the proposed method can achieve accurate registration results (the average of root mean square error is 128μm)

Choroidal Flow Signal in Late-Onset Stargardt Disease and Age-Related Macular Degeneration: An OCT-Angiography Study

PURPOSE. To investigate the choroidal blood flow in areas within and adjacent to retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) atrophy secondary to late-onset Stargardt disease (STGD1) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD). METHODS. A total of 43 eyes (23 STGD1 and 20 AMD) of patients with RPE atrophy and 25 eyes of healthy controls without ocular pathology underwent multimodal imaging including optical coherence tomography angiography (OCT-A; PLEX Elite 9000 Swept-Source OCT). Using an exploratory approach, choriocapillaris and deeper choroid OCT-A slabs were evaluated in order to detect differences between STGD1 and AMD. The magnitude of absence-of-flow signal (AFS) was investigated in terms of area-fraction and size-frequency distribution. RESULTS. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of areas of RPE atrophy revealed more pronounced rarefaction of the choriocapillaris flow signal in STGD1 as compared to AMD (AFS area fraction: 33.15% +/- 6.86% vs. 31.68% +/- 8.39%; P = 0.517), while outside RPE atrophy rarefaction was less pronounced in STGD1 (AFS area fraction: 17.41% +/- 5.67% vs. 21.59% +/- 6.90%; P < 0.001), to the level of nonsignificance compared to controls (13.27% +/- 2.99%, P = 0.368). Given this discrepancy, the ratio of the AFS area fraction within/outside of RPE atrophy could be used to differentiate between STGD1 and AMD with 65.0% sensitivity and 92.3% specificity. CONCLUSIONS. Using OCT-A, comparison of choroidal flow signal within and outside the area of RPE atrophy revealed distinct differences between STGD1 and AMD, potentially implicating a differential role of the choroid in the pathogenesis of RPE atrophy in these two diseases