Visualization of the Conventional Outflow Pathway in the Living Human Eye

Purpose: We sought to visualize the aqueous outflow system in 3 dimensions (3D) in living human eyes, and to investigate the use of commercially available spectral-domain optical coherence tomographic (SD-OCT) systems for this purpose. Design: Prospective, observational study. Participants: One randomly determined eye in each of 6 normal healthy subjects was included. Testing: We performed 3D SD-OCT imaging of the aqueous humor outflow structures with 2 devices: The Cirrus HD-OCT and the Bioptigen SDOIS. Main Outcome Measures: We created 3D virtual castings of Schlemm's canal (SC) and more distal outflow structures from scan data from each device. Results: Virtual casting of the SC provided visualization of more aqueous vessels branching from SC than could be located by interrogating the 2-dimensional (2D) image stack. Similarly, virtual casting of distal structures allowed visualization of large and small aqueous outflow channel networks that could not be appreciated with conventional 2D visualization. Conclusions: The outflow pathways from SC to the superficial vasculature can be identified and tracked in living human eyes using commercially available SD-OCT. Financial Disclosure(s): Proprietary or commercial disclosure may be found after the references. Ophthalmology 2012;119:1563-1568 (C) 2012 by the American Academy of Ophthalmology.