Real-time assessment of retinal blood flow with ultrafast acquisition by color Doppler Fourier domain optical coherence tomography

R. A. Leitgeb*, L. Schmetterer, W. Drexler, A. F. Fercher, R. J. Zawadzki, T. Bajraszewski

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

432 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We interfaced color Doppler Fourier domain optical coherence tomography (CD-FDOCT) with a commercial OCT system to perform in vivo studies of human retinal blood flow in real time. FDOCT does not need reference arm scanning and records one full depth and Doppler profile in parallel. The system operates with an equivalent A-scan rate of 25 kHz and allows real time imaging of the color encoded Doppler information together with the tissue morphology at a rate of 2-4 tomograms (40 × 512 pixel) per second. The recording time of a single tomogram (160 × 512 data points) is only 6,4ms. Despite the high detection speed we achieve a system sensitivity of 86dB using a beam power of 500μW at the cornea. The fundus camera allows simultaneous view for selection of the region of interest. We observe bi-directional blood flow and pulsatility of blood velocity in retinal vessels with a Doppler detection bandwidth of 12.5 kHz and a longitudinal velocity sensitivity in tissue of 200μm/s.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3116-3121
Number of pages6
JournalOptics Express
Volume11
Issue number23
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2003
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

  • Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

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