Results of a survey of ophthalmologists on the special aspects in performing and interpreting optical coherence tomography examination of the macula

BACKGROUND: Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is the main method for in vivo examination of the morphology of ocular posterior segment structures, used in modern ophthalmological practice.

AIM: Study of special aspects in performing and interpreting the results of OCT of the macula by ophthalmologists working in the healthcare system of the Russian Federation.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: In the anonymous survey, conducted using an original online questionnaire of 12 questions 59 respondents took part. They confirmed being ophthalmologists with experience in performing OCT and gave their consent to took part in the survey.

RESULTS: The majority of respondents (79.6%) reported that they face the need to perform OCT without obtaining the patient’s clinical data. 66.1% of respondents always evaluate the correct placement of segmentation boundaries. Only 56% of the respondents always or often perform frontal (“en face”) scans during OCT examination of the macula. At the same time, 16.9% of specialists indicated that they did not know what “segmentation boundaries” are, and 8.5% noted that they did not understand the term “en face scan”. The principle of layer-by-layer analysis is used by 94.9% of respondents when describing images. Significant discrepancies were also revealed in the interpretation by the respondents of some parameters on specific examples of OCT scans. 71.2% of respondents have experience in using templates when describing OCT images, and 13.6% use them constantly. The proportion of specialists who consider it expedient to develop and introduce into clinical practice a standard protocol (template) for describing macular OCT images was 84.7%.

CONCLUSIONS: Insufficient awareness of some ophthalmologists about particular principles of interpreting the results of an OCT imaging and about certain practical aspects of its application was revealed. This indicates the need in improving the quality of informational support and training of specialists. A request was received from ophthalmologists about the need to develop a standard protocol (template) for describing OCT images of the macular area with the aim of subsequent implementation into the clinical practice of the healthcare system of the Russian Federation.