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Automated detection of hyperreflective foci in the outer nuclear layer of the retina

Schmidt, Mathias Falck; Christensen, Jakob Lonborg; Dahl, Vedrana Andersen; Toosy, Ahmed; Petzold, Axel; Hanson, James VM; Schippling, Sven; ... Larsen, Michael; + view all (2022) Automated detection of hyperreflective foci in the outer nuclear layer of the retina. Acta Ophthalmologica 10.1111/aos.15237. (In press). Green open access

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Abstract

PURPOSE: Hyperreflective foci are poorly understood transient elements seen on optical coherence tomography (OCT) of the retina in both healthy and diseased eyes. Systematic studies may benefit from the development of automated tools that can map and track such foci. The outer nuclear layer (ONL) of the retina is an attractive layer in which to study hyperreflective foci as it has no fixed hyperreflective elements in healthy eyes. In this study, we intended to evaluate whether automated image analysis can identify, quantify and visualize hyperreflective foci in the ONL of the retina. METHODS: This longitudinal exploratory study investigated 14 eyes of seven patients including six patients with optic neuropathy and one with mild non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy. In total, 2596 OCT B-scan were obtained. An image analysis blob detector algorithm was used to detect candidate foci, and a convolutional neural network (CNN) trained on a manually labelled subset of data was then used to select those candidate foci in the ONL that fitted the characteristics of the reference foci best. RESULTS: In the manually labelled data set, the blob detector found 2548 candidate foci, correctly detecting 350 (89%) out of 391 manually labelled reference foci. The accuracy of CNN classifier was assessed by manually splitting the 2548 candidate foci into a training and validation set. On the validation set, the classifier obtained an accuracy of 96.3%, a sensitivity of 88.4% and a specificity of 97.5% (AUC 0.989). CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated that automated image analysis and machine learning methods can be used to successfully identify, quantify and visualize hyperreflective foci in the ONL of the retina on OCT scans.

Type: Article
Title: Automated detection of hyperreflective foci in the outer nuclear layer of the retina
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1111/aos.15237
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1111/aos.15237
Language: English
Additional information: © 2022 The Authors. Acta Ophthalmologica published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Acta Ophthalmologica Scandinavica Foundation. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: convolutional neural network, hyperreflective foci, outer nuclear layer of the retina, optical coherence tomography
UCL classification: UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Neuroinflammation
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10156058
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