Automatic Quantification Software for Geographic Atrophy Associated with Age-Related Macular Degeneration: A Validation Study

Abstract EN

Context.

Geographic atrophy (GA) is usually measured manually using fundus autofluorescence (FAF) images, lacking a reliable, automatic method to do so.

Aims.

To determine the accuracy and repeatability of new software to automatically quantify GA areas associated to age-related macular degeneration (AMD) by swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT).

Settings and Design.

Tertiary referral hospital in Spain.

Cross-sectional and noninterventional.

Methods and Material.

Forty-six eyes from 33 AMD patients with GA, without previous choroidal neovascularization, were scanned using a SS-OCT (Topcon Corporation, Japan), including three consecutive 7 × 7 mm OCT scans.

Three independent masked observers manually measured the GA area using FAF images.

These measures were compared to the three automatic determinations of the GA.

Lesions were classified according to their morphology and number as regular/irregular and single/multiple.

Statistical Analysis Used.

Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were estimated to study the agreement between the three physicians in manual measurements.

ICC through a two-way mixed effects model was used for the software measures, and Lin’s concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) was used to analyse the agreement between the physicians and the software.

Results.

The mean age was 76.3 ± 11.7 years.

Eighteen cases showed regular lesions, and 30 showed single lesions.

The CCC between manual and automatic measures was 0.95 for the whole sample.

The CCC for the area according to the lesion type was 0.92 and 0.97; it was 0.99 for single lesions and 0.89 for multiple lesions.

The ICC between the three physicians was 0.94 for the whole sample and 0.88 in multiple lesions.

The ICC between the three automatic measures for the area was 0.98 for the whole sample, regular or irregular lesions, and single or multiple lesions.

Conclusions.

The accuracy of this new software is substantial for the area with a high degree of repeatability agreement, being very precise in single lesions.