Speckle variance optical coherence tomography for imaging microcirculation

Non-invasive flow detection and in-vivo measurement are one of the most requested clinical applications for medical imaging modalities to investigate vascular pathologies and responsiveness to drug therapy. Implementing speckle variance calculation & visualization in a market-proven optical coherence tomography (OCT) system we demonstrate an angiography imaging algorithm that provides angle independent, depth-resolved flow measurement up to a capillary scale. The feasibility of quantitative flow analysis with speckle variance OCT (svOCT) is to be demonstrated by the evaluation with silicone phantom, animal and human probes, respectively. First results lead to the assumption that reliable access to quantified flow velocities with svOCT is not obtainable. However svOCT delivers high vascular contrast at minimal oversampling rates, being a simple implementation module and a beneficial extension to OCT systems in general.