Posterior rat eye during acute intraocular pressure elevation studied using polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography

Stanislava Fialová; Marco Augustin; Corinna Fischak; Leopold Schmetterer; Stephan Handschuh; Martin Glösmann; Michael Pircher; Christoph K Hitzenberger; Bernhard Baumann

doi:10.1364/BOE.8.000298

Posterior rat eye during acute intraocular pressure elevation studied using polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography

Biomed Opt Express. 2016 Dec 16;8(1):298-314. doi: 10.1364/BOE.8.000298. eCollection 2017 Jan 1.

Authors

Stanislava Fialová¹, Marco Augustin¹, Corinna Fischak², Leopold Schmetterer³, Stephan Handschuh⁴, Martin Glösmann⁴, Michael Pircher¹, Christoph K Hitzenberger¹, Bernhard Baumann¹

Affiliations

¹ Center for Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Medical University of Vienna, Waehringer Guertel 18-20, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
² Center for Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Medical University of Vienna, Waehringer Guertel 18-20, 1090 Vienna, Austria; Department of Clinical Pharmacology, General Hospital and Medical University of Vienna, Waehringer Guertel 18-20, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
³ Center for Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Medical University of Vienna, Waehringer Guertel 18-20, 1090 Vienna, Austria; Department of Clinical Pharmacology, General Hospital and Medical University of Vienna, Waehringer Guertel 18-20, 1090 Vienna, Austria; Singapore Eye Research Institute, The Academia, 20 College Road, Discovery Tower Level 6, 169856 Singapore, Republic of Singapore; Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University, Novena Campus, 11 Mandalay Road, 308232 Singapore, Republic of Singapore.
⁴ VetCore Facility for Research and Technology, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Veterinaerplatz 1, 1210 Vienna, Austria.

Abstract

Polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) operating at 840 nm with axial resolution of 3.8 µm in tissue was used for investigating the posterior rat eye during an acute intraocular pressure (IOP) increase experiment. IOP was elevated in the eyes of anesthetized Sprague Dawley rats by cannulation of the anterior chamber. Three dimensional PS-OCT data sets were acquired at IOP levels between 14 mmHg and 105 mmHg. Maps of scleral birefringence, retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) retardation and relative RNFL/retina reflectivity were generated in the peripapillary area and quantitatively analyzed. All investigated parameters showed a substantial correlation with IOP. In the low IOP range of 14-45 mmHg only scleral birefringence showed statistically significant correlation. The polarization changes observed in the PS-OCT imaging study presented in this work suggest that birefringence of the sclera may be a promising IOP-related parameter to investigate.

Keywords: (110.4500) Optical coherence tomography; (130.5440) Polarization-selective devices; (170.3880) Medical and biological imaging; (170.5755) Retina scanning.