Comparative study between swept-source and spectral-domain OCTA for imaging of choroidal neovascularization in age-related macular degeneration
Authors:   Department of Ophthalmology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710061, Shaanxi Province, China, Ma Ji-Xian , Di Rong ,   Department of Ophthalmology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710061, Shaanxi Province, China, Yang Jia-Jie ,   Affiliated Eye Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang 330006, Jiangxi Province, China, Tian Si-Wen ,   Affiliated Eye Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang 330006, Jiangxi Province, China, Qin Ya-Zhou ,   Department of Ophthalmology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710061, Shaanxi Province, China, Zhang Wan-Hu ,   Department of Ophthalmology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710061, Shaanxi Province, China, Lei Jian-Qin ,   Department of Ophthalmology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710061, Shaanxi Province, China, Liu Qiu-Ping ,   Department of Ophthalmology, First Affiliated Hospital of Nanhua University, Hengyang 421005, Hunan Province, China, Li Jing-Ming ,   Department of Ophthalmology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710061, Shaanxi Province, China
Published: October 2024

AIM: To compare the differences of choroidal neovascularization (CNV) measurements between swept-source and spectral-domain optical coherence tomography angiography (SS-OCTA and SD-OCTA) in neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) and the imaging reliability of the two devices.
METHODS: Prospective comparative study. SS-OCTA and SD-OCTA were used to scan the same eye with the modes of 3×3 and 6×6 mm2 centered on the neovascularization. Only qualified images were chosen and the border of CNV was manually delineated by two graders independently. The area of CNV (ACNV), vascular perfusion density (PD), and vessel length density (VLD) within the delineation were calculated using Image J. The differences of CNV measurements between the two OCTA devices were compared using Bland-Altman analysis. The agreement between the two graders on the measurements of each device was compared using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC).
RESULTS: A total of 18 patients (22 eyes) with nAMD were included. The measurements of ACNV, PD, and VLD were 7.247±4.586 and 4.901±3.741 mm2, 43.202±9.636 and 34.904±10.489, 6.339±1.228 and 5.908±1.741 mm-1 for SS-OCTA and SD-OCTA, respectively. The differences between the two devices were 2.346±3.030 mm2 (Z= -3.782, P&#x003C;0.0001), 8.298±14.160 (Z=-2.419, P=0.016), and 0.431±2.114 mm-1 (Z=-0.828, P=0.408) for ACNV, PD and VLD, respectively. The ICC between two graders were 0.893 (P&#x003C;0.001), 0.902 (P&#x003C;0.001), 0.885 (P&#x003C;0.001) for ACNV, PD, VLD in SS-OCTA, and 0.971 (P&#x003C;0.001), 0.976 (P&#x003C;0.001), 0.973 (P&#x003C;0.001) in SD-OCTA, respectively.
CONCLUSION: Both OCTA devices have high imaging reliability. Compared with SD-OCTA, SS-OCTA has a larger ACNV measurements, but doesn't show better resolution of internal vessels of CNV and well signal strength.