Choroidal thinning assessment through facial video analysis

TL;DR

This study introduces a facial video analysis method using TaiPPG to assess choroidal thinning, correlating facial blood flow features with choroidal thickness, offering a non-invasive approach for vascular disease prediction.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel facial video analysis technique to evaluate choroidal thinning, linking facial blood pulsation with choroidal thickness measurements.

Findings

Facial blood pulsation amplitude correlates with choroidal thickness (r = 0.48 to -0.56).

The method distinguishes choroidal thinning with AUCs of 0.69 to 0.79.

Facial video analysis can predict vascular conditions non-invasively.

Abstract

Different features of skin are associated with various medical conditions and provide opportunities to evaluate and monitor body health. This study created a strategy to assess choroidal thinning through the video analysis of facial skin. Videos capturing the entire facial skin were collected from 48 participants with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and 12 healthy individuals. These facial videos were analyzed using video-based trans-angiosomes imaging photoplethysmography (TaiPPG) to generate facial imaging biomarkers that were correlated with choroidal thickness (CT) measurements. The CT of all patients was determined using swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT). The results revealed the relationship between relative blood pulsation amplitude (BPA) in three typical facial angiosomes (cheek, side-forehead and mid-forehead) and the average macular CT (r = 0.48, p < 0.001; r = -0.56, p < 0.001; r = -0.40, p < 0.01). When considering a diagnostic threshold of 200{\mu}m, the newly developed facial video analysis tool effectively distinguished between cases of choroidal thinning and normal cases, yielding areas under the curve of 0.75, 0.79 and 0.69. These findings shed light on the connection between choroidal blood flow and facial skin hemodynamics, which suggests the potential for predicting vascular diseases through widely accessible skin imaging data.