Singapore Eye Research Institute, Singapore National Eye Center, Singapore, Singapore.
Eye-ACP, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, Singapore, Singapore.
Sci Rep. 2019 Nov 26;9(1):17576. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-54171-5.
Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) is a well-established non-invasive retinal vascular imaging technique. It has been recently adapted to image the anterior segment and has shown good potential to image corneal vascularisation. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the usefulness of OCTA to monitor regression of corneal vessels following anti-VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) treatment using a previously established corneal vascularisation rabbit model. The regression of vessels following the treatment with aflibercept and ranibizumab anti-VEGFs using both topical instillation and sub-conjunctival injection was quantified using OCTA and compared with ICGA (indocyanine green angiography). Overall vessel density measurements using OCTA showed good correlation (r = 0.988, p < 0.001) with ICGA, with no significant difference between the two treatment groups (p = 0.795). It was also shown that OCTA provided good repeatability outcomes of the quantitative measurements. Using Bland-Altman plots, vessel growth density values between anti-VEGF treatments were compared to control saline group. It was observed that aflibercept provided longer lasting effect than ranibizumab. We also observed that in both drugs, the topical route of administration topical provided longer regression outcomes compared to one-time sub-conjunctival injection. Thereby, with this pilot study, it was demonstrated that OCTA is a reliable imaging technique to follow-up and monitor corneal vascularisation and its treatment quantitatively.
光学相干断层扫描血管造影术（OCTA）是一种成熟的非侵入性视网膜血管成像技术。它最近已被应用于眼前段成像，并显示出很好的成像角膜血管化的潜力。本研究的目的是评估 OCTA 在使用先前建立的角膜血管化兔模型监测抗血管内皮生长因子（VEGF）治疗后角膜血管消退中的作用。使用 OCTA 定量评估和脉络膜荧光血管造影（ICGA）比较了玻璃体内注射和局部滴眼两种方式给予阿柏西普和雷珠单抗抗 VEGF 治疗后血管的消退情况。OCTA 的整体血管密度测量与 ICGA 具有良好的相关性（r=0.988，p<0.001），两组治疗之间无显著差异（p=0.795）。结果还表明，OCTA 可提供定量测量的良好可重复性。使用 Bland-Altman 图，将抗 VEGF 治疗之间的血管生长密度值与对照组生理盐水组进行比较。结果观察到阿柏西普的作用持续时间长于雷珠单抗。我们还观察到，在两种药物中，局部给药途径比一次性结膜下注射提供更长的消退效果。因此，通过这项初步研究，证明了 OCTA 是一种可靠的成像技术，可用于定量随访和监测角膜血管化及其治疗。
