Visualization of human retinal micro-capillaries with phase contrast high-speed optical coherence tomography

We present high-speed Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography (Fd-OCT) with the phase variance based motion contrast method for visualizing retinal micro-circulation in vivo. This technique allows non-invasive visualization of a two-dimensional retinal perfusion map and concurrent volumetric morphology of retinal microvasculature with high sensitivity. The high-speed acquisition rate at 125kHz A-scans enables reduction of motion artifacts with increased scanning area if compared to previously reported results. Several scanning schemes with different sampling densities and scanning areas are evaluated to find optimal parameters for in vivo imaging. In order to evaluate this technique, we compare OCT micro-capillary imaging using the phase variance technique with fundus fluorescein angiography (FA). Additionally, volumetric visualization of blood flow for a normal subject is presented.