Contrast enhancement of retinal B-scans from OCT3/Stratus by image registration - Clinical applications

For daily practice, in particular clinical studies using optical coherence tomography, the commercial OCT3/Stratus scanner has until now been the prevalent instrument of choice. Whereas the ongoing development of OCT-systems will permit evaluation of pathology on a cellular scale, this is a goal which is not within the limit of the present generation of clinical OCT. On the other hand it is possible to get improved retinal information from clinical equipment like the OCT3 system by registering and combining a series of scans. Due to the widespread clinical use of OCT3 this paper explores the potential improvement for a number of clinical cases using such a technique. The basic idea of composite image enhancement might also be useful for image-enhancement with the new generations of OCT equipment.