Faculty of Medicine, University of Montenegro, Kruševac bb, Podgorica, Montenegro.
Eye Clinic, University Hospital "Maggiore della Caritá", Novara, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2019 Nov 8;9(1):16340. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-52659-8.
The study explores the regional differences in microvascular geometry between the optic disc (O) and the macular area (M) in health and disease. Skeletonized manually segmented vascular networks from 15 healthy, 15 retinas with diabetic retinopathy (DR), and 15 retinas with glaucoma from publicly available High-Resolution Fundus (HRF) image database were used. When visualized by a digital fundus camera, O has a substantial proportion of small arteries and larger arterioles, while M contains smaller arterioles at the periphery and avascular zone in the center. We hypothesized that in pathological conditions the vascular network remodelling patterns in these two regions may be different. The analysis of box-counting fractal dimension (Db), lacunarity (Λ), and microvascular density showed that in healthy retinas, Λ and vessel density were lower in the M compared to the O, while the Db did not change. In retinas with DR, the Db was the lowest in the M, which was different from all other groups. The vessel density followed this trend. Lacunarity was the highest in the O of DR group compared to all other groups. The results show that in DR various regions of retinal microvascular network remodel in a different manner and to different extent.
本研究探讨了健康和疾病状态下视盘（O）和黄斑区（M）之间的微血管几何结构的区域差异。使用了来自公共高分辨率眼底（HRF）图像数据库的 15 个健康、15 个糖尿病视网膜病变（DR）和 15 个青光眼视网膜的手动分割血管网络的骨架化图像。当通过数字眼底相机观察时，O 区域有大量的小动脉和较大的小动脉，而 M 区域在周边有较小的小动脉，在中心区域则没有血管。我们假设在病理条件下，这两个区域的血管网络重塑模式可能不同。分形维数（Db）、空隙度（Λ）和微血管密度的分析表明，在健康的视网膜中，M 区域的Λ和血管密度比 O 区域低，而 Db 没有变化。在 DR 视网膜中，M 区域的 Db 最低，与其他所有组都不同。血管密度也遵循这一趋势。DR 组的 O 区域的空隙度与其他所有组相比最高。结果表明，在 DR 中，视网膜微血管网络的各个区域以不同的方式和不同的程度进行重塑。
