Advances in Optical Imaging for Ophthalmology: New Developments, Clinical Applications and Perspectives

The field of ophthalmic optical imaging has undergone a revolution over the past 30 years, particularly with the introduction of optical coherence tomography (OCT), which have since become the standard of care for a plethora of conditions. Significant improvement in both hardware and software have allowed the emergence of multiple imaging techniques for increasingly high-resolution and high-contrast imaging of both anterior and posterior eye. New generation optical imaging modalities include OCT angiography (OCTA), full-field OCT, adaptive optics (AO), phase contrast imaging, polarization-sensitive imaging, optoretinography functional imaging, metabolic contrast and laser doppler holography. All these ophthalmic optical imaging modalities are increasingly being applied and translated into the clinical environment, where initial results promise to transform patient care. By uncovering the pathophysiological structures and functions of the eye's complex neurovascular network, these advances in imaging technology can lead to earlier disease detection, more accurate diagnosis and treatment monitoring, and better management of many ophthalmic diseases.

This Research Topic mainly focuses on advances in ophthalmic optical imaging techniques, their development, preclinical/clinical application and prospects, both from a hardware and software (signal processing) perspective. Our goal is to provide an overview of next-generation imaging modalities developed to meet emerging clinical needs for high-resolution, high-contrast, multimodal, functional, molecular, and quantitative imaging for diagnosis, disease assessment, and biomarker extraction.

We welcome submissions on preclinical and clinical studies of original research articles, methods, reviews, mini-reviews, perspectives, clinical trials, case reports, and brief research reports. Submissions specifically related to ophthalmic optical imaging techniques are expected, with an emphasis on, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Cellular resolution retinal and corneal (anterior segment) imaging;

• Handheld, smartphone, home-care ophthalmic imaging systems;

• Optoretinography and functional ophthalmic imaging;

• Retinal image-based psychophysics;

• Angiographic ophthalmic imaging;

• Multimodal ophthalmic imaging;

• Contrast enhancement techniques in ophthalmic imaging (fluorescence, polarization, phase, molecular, motion, etc).

• Algorithms for image analysis and biomarkers extraction;

• Characterization of eye’s perturbations affecting imaging (motion, aberration, scattering, etc);

• Other ophthalmic imaging technologies

Topic Editors, Pedro Mecê and Ethan Rossi possess patents related to ocular imaging techniques. No other potential conflicts of interests were disclosed by the editorial team.