Intraretinal layer segmentation and parameter measurement in optic nerve head region through energy function of spatial-gradient continuity constraint

Abstract

For the diagnosis of glaucoma, optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a noninvasive imaging technique for the assessment of retinal layers. To accurately segment intraretinal layers in an optic nerve head (ONH) region, we proposed an automatic method for the segmentation of three intraretinal layers in eye OCT scans centered on ONH. The internal limiting membrane, inner segment and outer segment, Bruch’s membrane surfaces under vascular shadows, and interaction of multiple high-reflectivity regions in the OCT image can be accurately segmented through this method. Then, we constructed a novel spatial-gradient continuity constraint, termed spatial-gradient continuity constraint, for the correction of discontinuity between adjacent image segmentation results. In our experiment, we randomly selected 20 B-scans, each annotated three retinal layers by experts. Signed distance errors of −0.80 μm obtained through this method are lower than those obtained through the state-of-art method (−1.43 μm). Meanwhile, the segmentation results can be used as bases for the diagnosis of glaucoma.

Keywords

surface segmentation / parameter measurement / optical coherence tomography / optic nerve head / spatial-gradient continuity constraints

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