An Overview of Public Retinal Optical Coherence Tomography Datasets: Access, Annotations, and Beyond

In ophthalmology, Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) has become a daily used tool in the diagnostics and therapeutic planning of various diseases. Publicly available datasets play a crucial role in advancing research by providing access to diverse imaging data for algorithm development. The accessibility, data format, annotations, and metadata are not consistent across OCT datasets, making it challenging to efficiently use the available resources. This article provides a comprehensive analysis of different OCT datasets, with particular attention to dataset properties, disease representation, accessibility, and aims to create a catalog of all publicly available OCT datasets. The goal is to improve accessibility to OCT data, increase openness about the availability, and give important new perspectives on the state of OCT imaging resources. Our findings reveal the need for improved data-sharing practices and standardized documentation.