Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2009 Jun;93(6):775-81.
doi: 10.1136/bjo.2008.150698. Epub 2009 Mar 19.

Agreement between spectral-domain and time-domain OCT for measuring RNFL thickness

G Vizzeri  1 , R N Weinreb, A O Gonzalez-Garcia, C Bowd, F A Medeiros, P A Sample, L M Zangwill
Affiliations

Agreement between spectral-domain and time-domain OCT for measuring RNFL thickness

G Vizzeri et al. Br J Ophthalmol. 2009 Jun.

Abstract

Background/aims: To evaluate spectral-domain (SD) optical coherence tomography (OCT) reproducibility and assess the agreement between SD-OCT and Time-Domain (TD) OCT retinal nerve fibre layer (RNFL) measurements.

Methods: Three Cirrus-SD-OCT scans and one Stratus-TD-OCT scan were obtained from Diagnostic Innovations in Glaucoma Study (DIGS) healthy participants and glaucoma patients on the same day. Repeatability was evaluated using Sw (within-subject standard deviation), CV (coefficient of variation) and ICC (intraclass correlation coefficient). Agreement was assessed using correlation and Bland-Altman plots.

Results: 16 healthy participants (32 eyes) and 39 patients (78 eyes) were included. SD-OCT reproducibility was excellent in both groups. The CV and ICC for Average RNFL thickness were 1.5% and 0.96, respectively, in healthy eyes and 1.6% and 0.98, respectively, in patient eyes. Correlations between RNFL parameters were strong, particularly for average RNFL thickness (R(2) = 0.92 in patient eyes). Bland-Altman plots showed good agreement between instruments, with better agreement for average RNFL thickness than for sectoral RNFL parameters (for example, at 90 microm average RNFL thickness, 95% limits of agreement were -13.1 to 0.9 for healthy eyes and -16.2 to -0.3 microm for patient eyes).

Conclusions: SD-OCT measurements were highly repeatable in healthy and patient eyes. Although the agreement between instruments was good, TD-OCT provided thicker RNFL measurements than SD-OCT. Measurements with these instruments should not be considered interchangeable.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Examples showing the similarities between Cirrus spectral domain (SD) optical coherence tomography (OCT) and time-domain OCT printouts in one eye of a healthy participant and a patient. RNFL, retinal nerve fibre layer.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Scatter plot showing the correlation between spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) and time-domain optical coherence tomography (TD-OCT) average retinal nerve fibre layer (RNFL) thickness in one randomly selected eye of healthy participants and patients.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Modified Bland–Altman plots for agreement between spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) and time-domain optical coherence tomography (TD-OCT) average retinal nerve fibre layer thickness in healthy participants (A) and patients (B). To obtain the modified Bland–Altman plots, the difference was plotted against the weighted average of SD-OCT and TD-OCT measurements. The regression line is shown along with the 95% limits of agreement in dotted lines displayed as a function of the weighted average.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. van Velthoven ME, Faber DJ, Verbraak FD, et al. Recent developments in optical coherence tomography for imaging the retina. Progr Retin Eye Res. 2007;26:57–77. - PubMed
    1. Chen TC, Cense B, Pierce MC, et al. Spectral domain optical coherence tomography: ultra-high speed, ultra-high resolution ophthalmic imaging. Arch Ophthalmol. 2005;123:1715–20. - PubMed
    1. Wojtkowski M, Leitgeb R, Kowalczyk A, et al. In vivo human retinal imaging by Fourier domain optical coherence tomography. J Biom Opt. 2002;7:457–63. - PubMed
    1. Nassif N, Cense B, Hyle Park B, et al. In vivo human retinal imaging by ultrahigh-speed spectral domain optical coherence tomography. Opt Lett. 2004;29:480–2. - PubMed
    1. de Boer JF, Cense B, Hyle Park B, et al. Improved signal-to-noise ratio in spectral-domain compared with time-domain optical coherence tomography. Opt Lett. 2003;28:2067–9. - PubMed

Publication types