Three-dimensional choroid neovascularization growth prediction from longitudinal retinal OCT images based on a hybrid model

Choroid neovascularization (CNV) is a pathological manifestation of retinal-choroidal diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and pathological myopia, which can cause permanent loss of central vision. Prediction of its growth is important in treatment planning. In this paper, based on longitudinal optical coherence tomography (OCT) volumes, a three-dimensional CNV growth prediction framework is proposed. A hybrid model which combines the reaction-diffusion model and the hyperelastic biomechan-ical model through mass effect is adopted to characterize the growth of CNV region and its reaction with surround tissues. A treatment factor is also included so that the model can adjust to different treatment plan each patient receives. Tested on a dataset with 6 subjects, each with 12 longitudinal 3D images, the proposed method achieved average true positive rate (TPR), false positive rate (FPR) and Dice coefficient (DC) of 80.0 ? 7.62%, 23.4 ? 8.36% and 78.9 ? 7.54%, respectively, in predicting the future CNV regions, and outperforms those achieved by the single reaction-diffusion model. ? 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study proposes a three-dimensional CNV growth prediction framework based on longitudinal OCT images, which achieves accurate prediction of CNV region growth by using a hybrid model and treatment factor.