Visualization of the conventional outflow pathway in the living human eye.

PURPOSE We sought to visualize the aqueous outflow system in 3 dimensions (3D) in living human eyes, and to investigate the use of commercially available spectral-domain optical coherence tomographic (SD-OCT) systems for this purpose. DESIGN Prospective, observational study. PARTICIPANTS One randomly determined eye in each of 6 normal healthy subjects was included. TESTING We performed 3D SD-OCT imaging of the aqueous humor outflow structures with 2 devices: The Cirrus HD-OCT and the Bioptigen SDOIS. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES We created 3D virtual castings of Schlemm's canal (SC) and more distal outflow structures from scan data from each device. RESULTS Virtual casting of the SC provided visualization of more aqueous vessels branching from SC than could be located by interrogating the 2-dimensional (2D) image stack. Similarly, virtual casting of distal structures allowed visualization of large and small aqueous outflow channel networks that could not be appreciated with conventional 2D visualization. CONCLUSIONS The outflow pathways from SC to the superficial vasculature can be identified and tracked in living human eyes using commercially available SD-OCT.