Methods and systems for blood flow measurement using doppler optical coherence tomography

1. A method for measuring in vivo blood flow in a predefined region of a subject using Doppler Fourier domain optical coherence tomography (OCT), comprising:

scanning the region with a scanning pattern comprising at least two different planes to obtain Doppler shiftOCT data, wherein said planes cross blood vessels within said region;

analyzing the obtained Doppler shift OCT data to determine a vector representing a blood vessel and direction of blood flow in the vessel, wherein said analyzing step comprises comparing data corresponding to two or more planes in the scanning pattern in which the planes cross the same vessel;

calculating a Doppler angle between the blood vessel and an incident scanning beam incident on the vessel; and

determining a volumetric blood flow rate using the Doppler shift and the incident angle corresponding to the blood vessel.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein said OCT scanning pattern is one that is capable of crossing all blood vessels entering and leaving the region.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein said OCT scanning pattern crosses said blood vessels at an angle not perpendicular to the blood vessels.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein said scanning pattern is one selected from concentric circles, parallel lines, or arcs.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein said scanning pattern is a double circular scanning pattern.

6. The method of claim 4 , wherein said scanning pattern is one that is capable of being completed within a single cardiac cycle.

7. The method of claim 4 , wherein said scanning pattern have a distance of less than 300 μm between the scanning planes.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein said volumetric blood flow is the volume of blood flow into or out of the region per unit time averaged over one single cardiac cycle.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein said volumetric blood flow is determined by summing up the volumetric blood flow in the veins.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising a step of correcting for errors in the OCT scanned data caused by tissue movement.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising a step of correcting for phase decorrelation.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein said correcting step comprises constructing a standard curve of flow rate versus scanning step size between each axial scan, and correcting the flow rate according to the standard curve.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein said region is the optic disc of a subject's eye.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein said subject is human.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein said determining step comprises at least one of the following: obtaining a 2D speed distribution corresponding to the cross-section of the blood vessels, calculating a pulsation factor, or calculating an angle between the plane of the vessel's cross-section and the normal of the vessel.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein said method is computer implemented.

17. A method of diagnosing a disease condition related to blood flow, comprising:

monitoring blood flow at a location indicative of the diseased condition using the method of claim 1 .

18. The method of claim 17 , wherein said diseased condition is one selected from glaucoma or vein occlusion.

19. The method of claim 17 , wherein said location is the optic disc of the eye.

20. A method for determining a local blood flow rate in a subject by Doppler Fourier domain optical coherence tomography, comprising:

obtaining at least one pair of Doppler scan images containing Doppler shift signals, wherein each of the images in the pair correspond to a plane in a pair of planes intersecting at least one blood vessel;

defining a vector corresponding to the direction of the scanning beam and a vector corresponding to the direction of blood flow using coordinates of the blood vessels in the images;

calculating an incident angle between the scanning beam and the blood vessels using the vector of the scanning beam and the vectors of the blood vessels; and

determining the blood flow rate using the Doppler shift signals in the blood vessels and the corresponding incident angle.

21. The method of claim 20 , wherein said planes intersect a portion of the subject's body to define a scanning pattern selected from circulars, lines, or arcs.

22. The method of claim 21 , wherein said Doppler scans have a frame rate of at least 4 Hz.

23. The method of claim 20 , wherein said planes circumscribe a location of interest in the subject.

24. The method of claim 23 , wherein said location is the optic disc of the subject's eye.

25. The method of claim 23 , wherein volumetric flow is determined by calculating the blood flow leaving the circumscribed location.

26. The method of claim 20 , further comprising a step of correcting phase decorrelation.

27. A system for measuring and monitoring local blood flow, comprising:

spectrometer based Doppler Fourier domain optical coherence tomography instrument; and

a processing unit operatively connected to the instrument, wherein said processing unit is configured to perform the method of claim 20 .

28. A non-transitory computer readable medium having encoded thereon instructions for performing the method of claim 20 .

29. A method of measuring total retinal blood flow rate in a subject using Doppler Fourier domain optical coherence tomography, comprising:

scanning the optical disc of the subject in a circular pattern to obtain Doppler images, wherein said circular pattern comprises two or more concentric circles circumscribing the entire optical disc such that the scanned images represent two parallel planes intersecting the optical disc;

analyzing the Doppler images to identify all the veins leaving the optical disc and their respective Doppler angles; and

determining a volumetric flow rate for each vein and summing the volumetric flow rate to arrive at the total retinal blood flow rate.

30. The method of claim 29 , further comprising a step of correcting for scanning density phase decorrelation effect.