Melanin migration in retinitis pigmentosa evaluated by ultra-wide-field polarization diversity optical coherence tomography

Our research investigates retinal pigmentary abnormalities in retinitis pigmentosa (RP) patients using ultra-wide-field high-speed polarization diversity optical coherence tomography (PD-OCT) in a clinical setting. To account for the retinal curvature in the wide field of view, adaptive kernel-based spatial averaging is employed for degree-of-polarization-uniformity (DOPU) contrast formation with two complex OCT signals from two orthogonal polarization channels. 20 patients diagnosed with RP were recruited for this study and imaged with PD-OCT. Then, the melanin distribution images from PD-OCT were compared to standard multimodal imaging techniques, including intensity-based OCT, fundus photography, and short-wavelength fundus autofluorescence images. Wide-field PD-OCT imaging technique presented in this study was capable of precisely assessing melanin-related changes in RP over a large field of view and monitoring the disease progression. As a next step, we are investigating the correlation of specific genetic mutations in RP patients with specific clinical presentations and disease progression rates as assessed by the quantitative measurements in PD-OCT. The clinical findings will be presented during the conference.