Department of Nephrology and Hypertension, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany.
J Hypertens. 2011 Apr;29(4):777-82. doi: 10.1097/HJH.0b013e328343c27a.
The investigation of the retinal arterioles offers the unique opportunity to analyze in vivo arteriolar remodeling in arterial hypertension in humans. We analyzed the reliability of assessing retinal arteriolar morphology with our new version of the software analyses for scanning laser Doppler flowmetry.
In the test-retest reliability study, 10 eyes of 10 healthy persons were measured during 5 days under routine laboratory conditions with the Heidelberg Retinal Flowmetry. In a second study, interobserver and intraobserver reliability was analyzed from retinal images of 18 patients with three types of arterial hypertension by three readers and the most experienced reader analyzed all images twice on two different days. Images were analyzed by the old and the newly developed software versions. To characterize the reliability, the coefficients of variation were calculated.
The test-retest study analyzed with the new program showed that the variation coefficients of vessel and lumen diameter, wall thickness, wall/lumen ratio and new calculated parameter: lumen/vessel diameter ratio of retinal arterioles were significantly less than 10%, with the exception of the wall cross-sectional area (12.5%). The interobserver and intraobserver reliability showed in nearly all circumstances coefficients of variations of less than 10% and did not differ across various readers and patient groups.
The new software 'SLDF version 4.0' clearly improved the reliability of assessing the structural parameters of the retinal arterioles. The application delivers reliable measurements of the retinal arteriolar structure in vivo in humans.
视网膜小动脉的研究为分析人类动脉高血压时小动脉重塑提供了独特的机会。我们分析了使用我们新的扫描激光多普勒血流仪软件分析版本评估视网膜小动脉形态的可靠性。
在测试-重测可靠性研究中，10 名健康人在常规实验室条件下，用海德堡视网膜血流计在 5 天内测量 10 只眼。在第二项研究中，由三位读者分析三种类型动脉高血压的 18 位患者的视网膜图像，分析了观察者间和观察者内的可靠性，最有经验的读者在两天的不同时间两次分析了所有图像。使用旧版和新版软件对图像进行了分析。为了描述可靠性，计算了变异系数。
使用新程序进行的测试-重测研究表明，视网膜小动脉的血管和管腔直径、壁厚度、壁/腔比以及新计算的参数：管腔/血管直径比的变异系数明显小于 10%，除了壁截面积（12.5%）。观察者间和观察者内的可靠性显示，在几乎所有情况下，变异系数都小于 10%，且在不同读者和患者群体之间没有差异。
新软件“SLDF 版本 4.0”明显提高了评估视网膜小动脉结构参数的可靠性。该应用程序可在人体中对视网膜小动脉结构进行可靠的活体测量。
