Correctly understanding the clinical value of optical coherence tomography angiography / 中华实验眼科杂志

ABSTRACT

OCT angiography (OCTA) is a non-invasive imaging technique for detecting blood flow information of the retina and choroid.Dye injection is not needed with OCTA,which is different from fundus fluorescein angiography (FFA) and indocyanine green angiography (ICGA).OCTA is able to observe blood flow in different retinal and choroidal segmentation slab.This revolutionary breakthrough in OCTA algorithm provides more and more accurate blood flow informations in the diagnosis of ocular vessel diseases and the study on pathogenesis of some vessel-related eye diseases.However,like other biometric technology,OCTA has its limitations and shortcomings,for example,OCTA presents a smaller observational area than FFA and ICGA,and some factors affect the imaging quality and cause misdiagnosis during the examination and reading image.Fully understanding the principle of OCTA and its image features are helpful for eye doctors to better interpret the blood flow changes of retinal diseases,choroidal diseases,glaucoma and neuro-ophthalmic diseases.Ophthalmologists should correctly apply this imaging tool for a better monitoring and following up of these diseases.