This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Study correlates characteristics of diabetic microaneurysms with AOSLO and SD-OCT
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
SEATTLE — The combination of ultra-high resolution adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscope imaging with spectral domain optical coherence tomography can provide detailed assessment of the in vivo interplay of retinal vascular and neural pathology, according to a speaker here.
“Microaneurysms are common and can be a hallmark sign of diabetic retinopathy,” Jennifer K. Sun, MD, said at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meeting.
In a study of 71 microaneurysms in 25 eyes of 25 patients with diabetes, Sun and colleagues correlated structural and physiological characteristics of diabetic microaneurysms as visualized with both adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscope (AOSLO) and SD-OCT.
Three-fourths of patients had type 1 diabetes, and severity of diabetic retinopathy ranged from mild to proliferative.
Two major parameters looked at with AOSLO were wall hyperreflectivity and presence of a lumen clot, Sun said, adding that microaneurysms with hyperreflectivity were more likely to be larger and to have the presence of lumen clot. Wall hyperreflectivity was associated with inner layer retinal disorganization and increased cyst burden seen on SD-OCT.
“These [imaging] tools have enabled us to identify association between wall hyperreflectivity and neural disorganization as well as worse visual outcomes,” Sun said. “If validated in future longitudinal studies, AOSLO evaluation of structure could be predictive of biomarker anatomic and visual outcomes in our patients with diabetes.”
Disclosure: Sun receives financial support from Micromachines and Genentech and is a consultant for Abbott Laboratories and Novartis.