Abstract
Purpose:
We demonstrated previously that non-stimulated temporal retinal arterial and venous oscillations (pulsations and vasomotions) are changed in healthy volunteers with age and in patients with primary open angle glaucoma. Whether this dynamic retinal vessel behavior is altered in diabetes mellitus type 1 (DM1) is investigated.
Methods:
33 untreated patients with DM1 (age 51.7±8.3 years) with no or non-proliferative retinopathy and 33 age and sex matched medically healthy volunteers were examined by Dynamic Vessel Analyzer (DVA, IMEDOS, Jena, Germany). Temporal changes of vessel diameters of retinal arterial and venous vessel segments were examined with DVA in all subjects during 40 seconds. Oscillatory temporal changes of vessel diameter were divided into high-frequent (period < 1,5 s) and low-frequent (period ≥ 1,5 s) and were evaluated using methods of mathematical signal analysis.
Results:
Quantitative parameters characterizing dynamic retinal vessel behavior did not show any differences in retinal arterial oscillations between DM1 patients and healthy control subjects. In veins there was a significant difference in the rate of periodicity of high-frequency (control: 0.08(0.06; 0.17), DM1: 0.12(0.08; 0.23) [median (1.quartile; 3. quartile)], p < 0.05) as well as of low-frequency oscillations (control: 0.16(0.10; 0.24), DM1: 0.62(0.49; 1.23), p < 0.001) between the groups.
Conclusions:
Functional and morphological alterations in the retinal veins in DM1 with no or mild non-proliferative retinopathy are shown using a non-invasive in-vivo methodology. Changed retinal venous behavior in the initial stages of diabetes mellitus might be an indication for alterations in the vascular endothelium and blood flow regulation in this disease.
Keywords: 498 diabetes •
550 imaging/image analysis: clinical •
688 retina