Journal
EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Volume 246, Issue 20, Pages 2230-2237Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD
DOI: 10.1177/15353702211036704
Keywords
Anatomy; bioimaging; biology; physiology; imaging; medical; ophthalmology
Categories
Funding
- National Institutes of Health [R01 EY027833, R01 EY024544, R01 EY031394, P30 EY010572, T32 EY023211]
- William & Mary Greve Special Scholar Award from Research to Prevent Blindness
- Bright Focus Foundation [G2020168]
- Research to Prevent Blindness/Allergan Foundation Medical Student Eye Research Fellowship
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Conventional optical coherence tomography angiography has limitations in field of view, but recent improvements are exploring larger fields to enhance pathology detection. Normative measurements for key metrics like vessel density in peripheral retina are lacking. This study measured vessel density and intercapillary distance in different retinal regions and found significant differences between central macular and temporal regions, suggesting potential for identifying vascular pathology in the peripheral retina.
A limitation of conventional optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) is the limited field of view normally used in data acquisition. As the technology improves, larger fields of view that capture information away from the macular are being explored in order to provide an enhanced ability to detect pathology. However, normative measurements for important OCTA metrics like vessel density and intercapillary distance are not currently well-characterized in the peripheral retina. In this prospective study, we measured vessel density and intercapillary distance of the superficial vascular complex, ganglion cell layer plexus, and deep capillary plexus in montaged macular/temporal scans from 53 (33 men) healthy volunteers. Vessel density and intercapillary distance were also compared across different regions of the retina, including along arcs at separate distance from the fovea. Compared to the central macular region, the temporal retina had significantly lower vessel density, decreased thickness, and greater intercapillary distance in the superficial vascular complex, GCLP ganglion cell layer plexus, and deep capillary plexus (Wilcoxon rank sum test P < 0.001), with each of the plexuses examined here showing a general decrease in vessel density and an increase in intercapillary distance towards the temporal region. No significant difference was noted comparing corresponding vessel density and intercapillary distance regions above and below the macula, and multiple linear regression showed that age and intraocular pressure were not associated with vessel density and intercapillary distance in most models. Repeatability analysis reported as intraclass correlation coefficients demonstrated moderate to excellent reliability of vessel density and intercapillary distance in all OCTA layers. These results should help provide an enhanced baseline to help identify vascular pathology in the peripheral retina.
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