High-speed and widefield handheld swept-source OCT angiography with a VCSEL light source

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) and OCT angiography (OCTA) enable noninvasive structural and angiographic imaging of the eye. Portable handheld OCT/OCTA systems are required for imaging patients in the supine position. Examples include infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and operating room (OR). The speed of image acquisition plays a pivotal role in acquiring high-quality OCT/OCTA images, particularly with the handheld system, since both the operator hand tremor and subject motion can cause significant motion artifacts. In addition, having a large field of view and the ability of real-time data visualization are critical elements in rapid disease screening, reducing imaging time, and detecting peripheral retinal pathologies. The arrangement of optical components is less flexible in the handheld system due to the limitation of size and weight. In this paper, we introduce a 400-kHz, 55-degree field of view handheld OCT/OCTA system that has overcome many technical challenges as a portable OCT system as well as a high-speed OCTA system. We demonstrate imaging premature infants with retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in the NICU, a patient with incontinentia pigmenti (IP), and a patient with X-linked retinoschisis (XLRS) in the OR using our handheld OCT system. Our design may have the potential for improving the diagnosis of retinal diseases and help provide a practical guideline for designing a flexible and portable OCT system.

Automated summary

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) and OCT angiography (OCTA) allow noninvasive imaging of eye structures and blood vessels, playing a critical role in diagnosing and monitoring vascular eye diseases. Handheld OCT/OCTA systems offer flexibility and portability in eye imaging, although high image acquisition speed and stability are essential for obtaining quality images.