Eye Clinic, University Hospital "Maggiore della Carità", Novara, Italy.
Department of Clinical Sciences and Community Health, University of Milan, Milan, Italy.
J Diabetes Res. 2019 Jun 12;2019:2547216. doi: 10.1155/2019/2547216. eCollection 2019.
Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCT-A) has recently improved the ability to detect subclinical and early clinically visible microvascular changes occurring in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM). The aim of the present study is to evaluate and compare early quantitative changes of macular perfusion parameters in patients with DM without DR and with mild nonproliferative DR (NPDR) evaluated by two different swept-source (SS) OCT-A instruments using two scan protocols (3 × 3 mm and 6 × 6 mm). One hundred eleven subjects/eyes were prospectively evaluated: 18 healthy controls (control group), 73 eyes with DM but no DR (no-DR group), and 20 eyes with mild NPDR (DR group). All quantitative analyses were performed using ImageJ and included vessel and perfusion density, area and circularity index of the FAZ, and vascular complexity parameters. The agreement between methods was assessed according to the method of Bland-Altman. A significant decrease in the majority of the considered parameters was found in the DR group versus the controls with both instruments. The results of Bland-Altman analysis showed the presence of a systemic bias between the two instruments with PLEX Elite providing higher values for the majority of the tested parameters when considering 6 × 6 mm angiocubes and a less definite difference in 3 × 3 mm angiocubes. In conclusion, this study documents early microvascular changes occurring in the macular region of patients at initial stages of DR, confirmed with both SS OCT-A instruments. The fact that early microvascular alterations could not be detected with one instrument does not necessarily mean that these alterations are not actually present, but this could be an intrinsic limitation of the device itself. Further, larger longitudinal studies are needed to better understand microvascular damage at very early stages of diabetic retinal disease and to define the strengths and weaknesses of different OCT-A devices.
光学相干断层扫描血管造影术(OCT-A)最近提高了检测糖尿病患者发生的亚临床和早期临床可见微血管变化的能力。本研究旨在评估和比较两种不同的扫频源(SS)OCT-A 仪器使用两种扫描方案(3×3mm 和 6×6mm)在无糖尿病视网膜病变(DR)和轻度非增生性 DR(NPDR)的 DM 患者中黄斑灌注参数的早期定量变化。前瞻性评估了 111 名受试者/眼:18 名健康对照者(对照组),73 只无 DR 的 DM 眼(无 DR 组)和 20 只轻度 NPDR 眼(DR 组)。使用 ImageJ 进行所有定量分析,包括血管和灌注密度、FAZ 面积和圆形度指数以及血管复杂性参数。根据 Bland-Altman 方法评估方法间的一致性。与对照组相比,两种仪器均显示 DR 组的大多数参数均显著降低。Bland-Altman 分析结果表明,两种仪器之间存在系统偏差,当考虑 6×6mm 血管立方时,PLEX Elite 为大多数测试参数提供了更高的值,而在 3×3mm 血管立方中差异较小。总之,这项研究记录了在 DR 初始阶段患者黄斑区发生的早期微血管变化,两种 SS-OCT-A 仪器均可证实。一种仪器无法检测到早期微血管改变并不一定意味着这些改变实际上不存在,但这可能是设备本身的固有局限性。此外,需要进行更大的纵向研究,以更好地了解糖尿病视网膜病变早期阶段的微血管损伤,并确定不同 OCT-A 设备的优缺点。