Analysis of correlations between local geographic atrophy growth rates and local OCT angiography-measured choriocapillaris flow deficits

• Main Authors: Moult, Eric M (Author), Shi, Yingying (Author), Zhang, Qinqin (Author), Wang, Liang (Author), Mazumder, Rahul (Author), Chen, Siyu (Author), Chu, Zhongdi (Author), Feuer, William (Author), Waheed, Nadia K (Author), Gregori, Giovanni (Author), Wang, Ruikang K (Author), Rosenfeld, Philip J (Author), Fujimoto, James G (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: The Optical Society, 2022-06-22T18:20:00Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

The purpose of this study is to quantitatively assess correlations between local geographic atrophy (GA) growth rates and local optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA)-measured choriocapillaris (CC) flow deficits. Thirty-eight eyes from 27 patients with GA secondary to age-related macular degeneration (AMD) were imaged with a commercial 1050 nm swept-source OCTA instrument at 3 visits, each separated by ∼6 months. Pearson correlations were computed between local GA growth rates, estimated using a biophysical GA growth model, and local OCTA CC flow deficit percentages measured along the GA margins of the baseline visits. The p-values associated with the null hypothesis of no Pearson correlation were estimated using a Monte Carlo permutation scheme that incorporates the effects of spatial autocorrelation. The null hypothesis (Pearson's ρ = 0) was rejected at a Benjamini-Hochberg false discovery rate of 0.2 in 15 of the 114 visit pairs, 11 of which exhibited positive correlations; even amongst these 11 visit pairs, correlations were modest (r in [0.30, 0.53]). The presented framework appears well suited to evaluating other potential imaging biomarkers of local GA growth rates.