Comparison of Current Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography Methods in Imaging Retinal Hemangioblastomas

March 10, 2026
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AUTHORS

Michael Reich, Andreas Glatz, Daniel Boehringer, Charlotte Evers, Moritz Daniel, Felicitas Bucher, Franziska Ludwig, Simone Nuessle, Wolf A Lagrèze, Peter M Maloca, Clemens Lange, Thomas Reinhard, Hansjuergen Agostini, Stefan J Lang

Transl Vis Sci Technol. 2020 Jul 8;9(8):12. doi: 10.1167/tvst.9.8.12. eCollection 2020 Jul.

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: To compare spectral-domain (SD) and swept-source (SS) optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) for imaging retinal capillary hemangioblastomas (RCHs) in von Hippel-Lindau disease (VHLD).

METHODS: Prospective single-center cross-sectional study. Tumor size (TS) of perfused RCHs was assessed clinically in relation to the optic disc size. For both technologies, SD-OCTA and SS-OCTA, corresponding images with a scan size of 3 × 3 mm2 and 6 × 6 mm2, respectively, were overlaid according to the set of marker positions to determine the TS.

RESULTS: From 200 patients with VHLD, 48 patients showed 84 RCHs. SD-OCTA images of 39 RCHs (46.4%) and SS-OCTA images of 48 RCHs (57.2%) were suitable for analysis. The average in OCTA-measured TS of 1.60 ± 2.58 mm2 (range, 0.01-10.43) was congruent to the clinically assessed TS in 81.3% of cases (r = 0.86, P < 0.0001). TS measured in SD-OCTA compared to SS-OCTA showed similar values and a high correlation (all P < 0.0001). Nevertheless, despite the similarities, a slight trend in SS-OCTA was observed whereby with increasing TS, an elevated TS was detected compared to SD-OCTA (3 × 3-mm2 scans: mean difference of 0.03 ± 0.04 mm2, 6 × 6-mm2 scans: 0.08 ± 0.19 mm2). However, within the same imaging technology method, TS values almost did not differ (SD-OCTA: mean difference of 0.01 ± 0.02 mm2, SS-OCTA: 0.001 ± 0.01 mm2).

CONCLUSIONS: OCTA may serve as an additional tool for diagnosis and monitoring of RCHs. Nevertheless, due to the differences between the technologies, the values cannot be used interchangeably.

TRANSLATIONAL RELEVANCE: SD-OCTA and SS-OCTA are suitable to detect and monitor RCHs and provide a more detailed assessment about the TS than this is clinically possible.

PMID:32855859 | PMC:PMC7422766 | DOI:10.1167/tvst.9.8.12

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