Visible-light optical coherence tomography-based multimodal retinal imaging for improvement of fluorescent intensity quantification

Biomed Opt Express. 2016 Aug 4;7(9):3220-3229. doi: 10.1364/BOE.7.003220. eCollection 2016 Sep 1.

Abstract

We developed a spectral-domain visible-light optical coherence tomography (VIS-OCT) based multimodal imaging technique which can accomplish simultaneous OCT and fluorescence imaging with a single broadband light source. Phantom experiments showed that by using the simultaneously acquired OCT images as a reference, the effect of light attenuation on the intensity of the fluorescent images by materials in front of the fluorescent target can be compensated. This capability of the multimodal imaging technique is of high importance for achieving quantification of the true intensities of autofluorescence (AF) imaging of the retina. We applied the technique in retinal imaging including AF imaging of the retinal pigment epithelium and fluorescein angiography (FA). We successfully demonstrated the effect of compensation on AF and FA images with the simultaneously acquired VIS-OCT images.

Keywords: (110.4500) Optical coherence tomography; (170.2520) Fluorescence microscopy; (170.3880) Medical and biological imaging; (170.4470) Ophthalmology; (170.4580) Optical diagnostics for medicine.