Figure 3.

The flowchart of calculating the cushion size and cushion thickness along the inflow heart tube. A: the OCT en face projection calculated by MIP (maximum intensity projection) along the direction of the OCT illumination. The centerline (red-dotted line) of the inflow heart tube was manually selected from the en face OCT projection. P₁ and P₂ are two end points of the centerline. Image planes (black-dotted lines) perpendicular to this centerline were extracted. Scale bar = 200 μm. B₁: plot of the cushion cross-sectional area (mm²) along the heart tube from P₁ to P₂. Each red point on the curve is the size of the cushion area in each image slice. The dotted blue line is the smoothed size curve. B₂: the curve of the average cushion thickness (μm) along the heart tube from P₁ to P₂. Each red point on the curve is the average thickness of the cushion area in each image slice. The dotted blue line is the smoothed thickness curve. C₁: the en face OCT projection image overlaid by the size curve in B₁. C₂: The en face OCT projection image overlaid by the thickness curve in B₂. At, atrium; OCT, optical coherence tomography; OFT, outflow tract; Vt, ventricle.