Measuring retinal blood flow in rats using Doppler optical coherence tomography without knowing eyeball axial length

Journal Article · Tue Sep 15 04:00:00 EDT 2015 · Medical Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1118/1.4928597· OSTI ID:22581364

Liu, Wenzhong; Yi, Ji; Chen, Siyu ^[1]; Jiao, Shuliang ^[2]

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1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208 (United States)
2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Florida International University, Miami, Florida 33174 (United States)

Purpose: Doppler optical coherence tomography (OCT) is widely used for measuring retinal blood flow. Existing Doppler OCT methods require the eyeball axial length, in which empirical values are usually used. However, variations in the axial length can create a bias unaccounted for in the retinal blood flow measurement. The authors plan to develop a Doppler OCT method that can measure the total retinal blood flow rate without requiring the eyeball axial length. Methods: The authors measured the retinal blood flow rate using a dual-ring scanning protocol. The small and large scanning rings entered the eye at different incident angles (small ring: 4°; large ring: 6°), focused on different locations on the retina, and detected the projected velocities/phase shifts along the probing beams. The authors calculated the ratio of the projected velocities between the two rings, and then used this ratio to estimate absolute flow velocity. The authors tested this method in both Intralipid phantoms and in vivo rats. Results: In the Intralipid flow phantom experiments, the preset and measured flow rates were consistent with the coefficient of determination as 0.97. Linear fitting between preset and measured flow rates determined the fitting slope as 1.07 and the intercept as −0.28. In in vivo rat experiments, the measured average total retinal blood flow was 7.02 ± 0.31μl/min among four wild-type rats. The authors’ measured flow rates were consistent with results in the literature. Conclusions: By using a dual-ring scanning protocol with carefully controlled incident angle difference between the two scanning rings in Doppler OCT, the authors demonstrated that it is feasible to measure the absolute retinal blood flow without knowing the eyeball axial length.

• OSTI ID: 22581364
• Journal Information: Medical Physics, Journal Name: Medical Physics Journal Issue: 9 Vol. 42; ISSN 0094-2405; ISSN MPHYA6
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES
61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY
BEAMS
BLOOD
BLOOD FLOW
FLOW RATE
IN VIVO
PHANTOMS
PHASE SHIFT
RATS
RETINA
TOMOGRAPHY