Visible-light optical coherence tomography for retinal oximetry

Abstract

We applied a visible-light spectroscopic optical coherence tomography (vis-OCT) for in vivo retinal oximetry. To extract hemoglobin oxygen saturation (sO(2)) in individual retinal vessels, we established a comprehensive analytical model to describe optical absorption, optical scattering, and blood cell packing factor in the whole blood and fit the acquired vis-OCT signals from the bottom of each imaged vessel. We found that averaged sO(2) values in arterial and venous bloods were 95% and 72%, respectively.