Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography Characteristics of Optic Disc Melanocytoma Nan Zhou, Xiaolin Xu and Wenbin Wei*
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Zhou et al. BMC Ophthalmology (2020) 20:429 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12886-020-01676-7 RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access Optical coherence tomography angiography characteristics of optic disc melanocytoma Nan Zhou, Xiaolin Xu and Wenbin Wei* Abstract Background: Optic disc melanocytoma (ODMC) was a benign pigmented intraocular tumor with the rare potential malignant transformation. This study was designed to evaluate tumor vasculature with optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) in ODMC. Methods: Eyes of healthy individuals in a control group and of patients with ODMC were imaged by OCTA systems operating at 840 nm wavelengths and examined. The main outcome measures were OCTA images, qualitative evaluation of optic disc and tumor vasculature, quantitative vascular density (VD) and perfusion density (PD). Results: One eye of ten normal volunteers and ten patients with ODMC were imaged. Eyes affected by ODMC as compared to the eyes of the control group (all P < 0.05). The healthy optic disc had radially-oriented vessels within the retina on OCTA. Optic disc melanocytoma was characterized by globular, demonstrated tortuous blood vessels, uneven thickness, and relatively disorganized intratumoral vasculature. The VD and PD within ODMC were significantly higher (12.360% ± 4.175, 0.316% ± 0.119%, P < 0.0001) than in normal optic discs (4.160% ± 2.290, 0.102% ± 0.0, 56%, P < 0.0001). No significant differences were established of the VD and PD in each single measurement zone (P > 0.05) between the ODMC and the control eyes. At 840 nm, OCTA could provide sufficient visualization of the tumor vasculature and better penetration through thicker tumors. The full thickness was visualized even in thicker tumors and highly pigmented lesions (> 2 mm). Interpretable OCTA images were obtained in 96% of the participants in whom imaging was attempted. Conclusions: OCTA may provide a noninvasive, safe, and efficient technique for evaluating a variety of neoplasms including the growth and vascularity in ODMC. OCTA could facilitate the evaluation of the vascular abnormalities of tumors and the effect of melanin on the penetration of the OCTA beam was not significant. Keywords: Optical coherence tomography angiography, Pigmentation, Vascular density, Perfusion density, Optic disc melanocytoma * Correspondence: [email protected] Beijing Tongren Eye Center, Beijing Key Laboratory of Intraocular Tumor Diagnosis and Treatment, Medical Artificial Intelligence Research and Verification Laboratory of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Beijing Tongren Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. Zhou et al. BMC Ophthalmology (2020) 20:429 Page 2 of 8 Background All patients with ODMC underwent detailed ophthalmo- Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) logic examination and imaging, including best-corrected was a dye-free and relatively new microvascular imaging visual acuity (BCVA), intraocular pressure (IOP), slit lamp method that has been applied to evaluate retinopathies biomicroscopy, indirect ophthalmoscope, fundus color or choroidal neovascularization and the changes in photography, ICGA, and FA. different vascular layers [1, 2]. This technique does not Based on the fundus examination, ODMC was charac- require injected contrast agents, which increases its terized by brown to black pigmented mass mainly located safety and decreases its risk compared with traditional at the optic disc, without other fundus diseases. Patients ophthalmic angiography tests, such as indocyanine green were excluded if they previously had undergone retinal angiography (ICGA) and fluorescein angiography (FA). surgery or showed signs of glaucoma, retinal vein occlu- The application of OCTA system to evaluate and analyze sions, diabetic retinopathy, age-related macular degener- the tumor vascular system was a newly developing field ation, or other retinal diseases. The normal individuals [3, 4]. Previous studies have shown that the OCTA with no history of any systematic disease or ocular disease system working at 840 nm wavelength could improve served as the control groups, a BCVA of 20/20 or better. the penetration into turbid media and decrease light The age, gender, and laterality of the control groups scattering by tumor tissues [5, 6]. We used the Carl matched to the ODMC patients. Zeiss Meditec OCTA system operating at 840 nm wave- The clinical examination and review of imaging were length in our study to investigate optic disc pigmented performed by an ophthalmic oncologist (W.W.B.) with tumors. rich experience in the clinical diagnosis of ODMC. All Optic disc melanocytoma (ODMC) was a benign healthy volunteers were subjected to fundus color pho- pigmented hamartoma with rare malignant potential, tography and OCTA, reviewed by an ophthalmologist but approximately 1–2% cases have been observed to (W.W.B.). acquire malignant transformation [7]. They may infil- trate the adjacent retina and choroid [8–10], and while OCTA they tend to be less aggressive than posterior choroidal Each of the ODMC eyes and the healthy eyes of the melanoma. Most ODMC patients were asymptomatic control group was evaluated using AngioPlex device with no visual loss [11]. Histopathologically, melanocy- (Cirrus 5000 HD-OCT system, Carl Zeiss Meditec, toma was composed of intensely pigmented round to Inc.) acquired OCT angiograms. Additional scans using oval nevus cells with benign features. However, slow the 20 Hz FAST-TRAC™ Technology, which provides growth was observed in approximately 11% of the cases live-tracking for motion-artifact-free images [13]. The [12]. Diagnosis was based on ophthalmoscopic features AngioPlex Metrix™ technology provides the measure of [7]. Ancillary tests such as ultrasonography and optical vascular density and perfusion density images. The coherence tomography (OCT) helped in follow-up. Single-Scan Simplicity of the ZEISS AngioPlex system Clinically, the increased tumor vascularity may be an requires only a single additional OCT scan to generate indication associated with aggressive tumor behavior an ultra-clear three-dimensional (3D) OCTA image. with metastatic potential [12]. OCTA used special algo- Participants’ pupils were pharmacologically dilated to rithms to construct maps of blood flow in various tissue allow visualization of the fundus. Three-dimensional layers and further provided a way to generate quantita- (3D) horizontal and vertical OCTA raster data was tive indicators to analyze the state of the vascular acquired over retina mode (3 × 3 mm, 6 × 6 mm) with a system. OCTA could provide vascular changes asso- scan depth of 2 mm inside the tissue. Each OCTA ciated with the malignant transformation of tumors. raster scan took approximately 2.5 s to obtain three re- The purpose of this preliminary study was to peated B-scans. The artifacts caused by axial movement characterize and quantify the ODMC using OCTA, by from eye motion was eliminated by post-imaging soft- comparing the vascular patterns, vascular density, and ware. The software automatically segmented the tissue perfusion density in the ODMC. We also proposed into six layers: the vitreoretinal interface (VRI), the OCTA imaging of normal blood flow of optic disc in superficial retinal vascular layer (SRL), the deep retinal healthy volunteers, which were utilized to evaluate the vascular layer (DRL), the avascular, the choriocapillaris tumorigenesis-associated changes in vascularity. layer, and the choroid layer. The segmentation of the tissue layers was checked before any measurement was Methods performed. For ODMC patients, we edited the layers of The clinical cross-sectional observational study included the tumors that may cause the algorithms to incorrectly patients who consecutively recruited in the Beijing Tongren trace the actual boundaries. In the cross-sectional OCT Eye Center, Beijing Tongren Hospital from April 2018 to images, the surface of the ODMC and the borderline of January 2019. The healthy participants were volunteers. the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) were segmented. Zhou et al. BMC Ophthalmology (2020) 20:429 Page 3 of 8 The vascular density (VD, defined as the total length females; mean age 46.70 ± 10.83, range 25–58 years) with of perfused vasculature per unit area in a region of ODMC were prospectively included in this observational measurement) and perfusion density (PD, defined as the study. The demographic information of the enrolled total area of the perfused