Deep learning algorithms to segment and quantify the choroidal thickness and vasculature in swept-source optical coherence tomography images

Abstract

Accurate segmentation of choroidal thickness (CT) and vasculature is important to better analyze and understand the choroid-related ocular diseases. In this paper, we proposed and implemented a novel and practical method based on the deep learning algorithms, residual U-Net, to segment and quantify the CT and vasculature automatically. With limited training data and validation data, the residual U-Net was capable of identifying the choroidal boundaries as precise as the manual segmentation compared with an experienced operator. Then, the trained deep learning algorithms was applied to 217 images and six choroidal relevant parameters were extracted, we found high intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) of more than 0.964 between manual and automatic segmentation methods. The automatic method also achieved great reproducibility with ICC greater than 0.913, indicating good consistency of the automatic segmentation method. Our results suggested the deep learning algorithms can accurately and efficiently segment choroid boundaries, which will be helpful to quantify the CT and vasculature.