Purpose: To describe and evaluate a free, online tool for automatically segmenting
optical coherence tomography (OCT) images from different devices and computing
summary measures such as retinal thickness.
Methods: ReLayer (https://relayer.online) is an online platform to which OCT scan
images can be uploaded and analyzed. Results can be downloaded as plaintext (.csv)
files. The segmentation method includes a novel, one-dimensional active contour
model, designed to locate the inner limiting membrane, inner/outer segment, and
retinal pigment epithelium. The method, designed for B-scans from Heidelberg
Engineering Spectralis, was adapted for Topcon 3D OCT-2000 and OptoVue AngioVue.
The method was applied to scans from healthy and pathological eyes, and was
validated against segmentation by the manufacturers, the IOWA Reference
Algorithms, and manual segmentation.
Results: Segmentation of a B-scan took 1 second. In healthy eyes, mean difference
in retinal thickness from ReLayer and the reference standard was below the resolution
of the Spectralis and 3D OCT-2000, and slightly above the resolution of the AngioVue.
In pathological eyes, ReLayer performed similarly to IOWA (P ¼ 0.97) and better than
Spectralis (P , 0.001).
Conclusions: A free online platform (ReLayer) is capable of segmenting OCT scans
with similar speed, accuracy, and reliability as the other tested algorithms, but offers
greater accessibility. ReLayer could represent a valuable tool for researchers requiring
the full segmentation, often not made available by commercial software.
Translational Relevance: A free online platform (ReLayer) provides free, accessible
segmentation of OCT images: data often not available via existing commercial
software