OCTAVA: an open-source toolbox for quantitative analysis of optical coherence tomography angiography images
This addresses the problem of incomparable study outcomes in OCTA research and clinical applications, mainly in ophthalmology and dermatology, by providing a standardized workflow, though it is incremental as it builds on existing methods.
The authors tackled the lack of standardization in optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) data analysis by developing OCTAVA, an open-source toolbox that automates pre-processing, segmentation, and quantitative analysis, showing it can accurately and reproducibly determine metrics for microvasculature characterization across different instruments and samples.
Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) performs non-invasive visualization and characterization of microvasculature in research and clinical applications mainly in ophthalmology and dermatology. A wide variety of instruments, imaging protocols, processing methods and metrics have been used to describe the microvasculature, such that comparing different study outcomes is currently not feasible. With the goal of contributing to standardization of OCTA data analysis, we report a user-friendly, open-source toolbox, OCTAVA (OCTA Vascular Analyzer), to automate the pre-processing, segmentation, and quantitative analysis of en face OCTA maximum intensity projection images in a standardized workflow. We present each analysis step, including optimization of filtering and choice of segmentation algorithm, and definition of metrics. We perform quantitative analysis of OCTA images from different commercial and non-commercial instruments and samples and show OCTAVA can accurately and reproducibly determine metrics for characterization of microvasculature. Wide adoption could enable studies and aggregation of data on a scale sufficient to develop reliable microvascular biomarkers for early detection, and to guide treatment, of microvascular disease.