Boundary detection errors on optical coherence tomography images in patients with diabetic retinopathy.

Background And Objective: To study the incidence of boundary detection errors produced by optical coherence tomography measurements in patients with diabetic retinopathy.

Patients And Methods: One hundred sixteen eyes with diabetic retinopathy of 64 consecutive patients with diabetes mellitus were included in this retrospective study. The StratusOCT instrument (Carl Zeiss Meditec, Dublin, CA) with the macular thickness map protocol was used for the examinations. After data acquisition, each scan was analyzed using the retinal thickness (single eye) protocol to evaluate whether there was any misdetection of the retinal boundaries.

Results: Boundary detection errors were found in 35.3% of eyes. The majority of artifacts were those caused by hard exudates (41.5%), followed by cystoid macular edema (31.7%) and proliferation (17.0%).

Conclusion: Occurrence of artifacts with optical coherence tomography measurements in cases of diabetic retinopathy is not a rare phenomenon and verification of quantitative measurements is strongly recommended.