Quantitative retinal blood flow mapping from fluorescein videoangiography using tracer kinetic modeling

Abnormal retinal blood flow (RBF) has been associated with numerous retinal pathologies, yet existing methods for measuring RBF predominantly provide only relative measures of blood flow and are unable to quantify volumetric blood flow, which could allow direct patient to patient comparison. This work presents a methodology based on linear systems theory and an image-based arterial input function to quantitatively map volumetric blood flow from standard fluorescein videoangiography data, and is therefore directly translatable to the clinic. Application of the approach to fluorescein retinal videoangiography in rats (4 control, 4 diabetic) demonstrated significantly higher RBF in 4-5 week diabetic rats as expected from the literature.