Automated Detection of Clinically Significant Macular Edema by Grid Scanning Optical Coherence Tomography

Objective—To compare the detection of clinically significant diabetic macular edema (DME) by an optical coherence tomography (OCT) grid scanning protocol and biomicroscopic examination. Design—Retrospective case series. Participants—Outpatients at the Doheny Eye Institute. Methods—The clinical and imaging records of a consecutive series of 71 eyes of 40 patients referred for DME who underwent OCT using the both the Macular Grid 5 (MG5) scanning protocol (to allow a more evenly distributed sampling of points in the macula) and the standard Fast Macular Thickness Map (FMTM) pattern were reviewed. An automated algorithm was developed to generate a retinal thickness map using the MG5 data, which was then compared with a normative database to identify presumed areas of retinal edema. Clinically significant macular edema (CSME) was also identified by clinical examination and stereoscopic fundus photographs for comparison with the results of the OCT protocols. Main Outcome Measures—Sensitivity and specificity of scanning protocols. Results—Optical coherence tomograms were inspected visually, and automatically detected retina