Developing a potential retinal OCT biomarker for local growth of geographic atrophy

Abstract

Geographic atrophy (GA), the advanced stage of age-related macular degeneration, is a leading cause of blindness. GA lesions are characterized by anisotropic growth and the ability to predict growth patterns would be valuable in assessing potential therapeutics. In this study, we propose an OCT-based marker of local GA growth rate based on an axial projection of the OCT volume in the Henle fiber layer (HFL) and outer nuclear layer (ONL). We analyze the association between our proposed metric and local GA growth rates in a small longitudinal cohort of patients with AMD. These methods can potentially be used to identify risk markers, stratify patients, or assess response in future therapeutic studies.