Evaluation of Retinal Venous Blood Flow Velocity Profiles at arteriovenous crossing Using Spectral-Domain Doppler Optical Coherence Tomography in Healthy Young Subjects

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the retinal venous blood velocity profiles at the arteriovenous crossing.

Methods: We measured the blood velocity profiles in the retinal venules using Doppler optical coherence tomography in 6 healthy volunteers. To evaluate the effect of arteriovenous crossing on the retinal blood velocity profiles, we calculated the ratio of the blood velocity at the centerline (Vmax) to the blood velocity averaged over the lumen (Vave) in the retinal venules downstream and upstream of the arteriovenous crossing.

Results: The ratios of Vmax to Vave downstream and upstream of arteriovenous crossing were 1.58 ± 0.24 and 1.56 ± 0.22, respectively. There was no significant (P = 0.63) difference in the ratio of Vmax to Vave between before and after arteriovenous crossing.

Conclusions: The current study showed that the blood velocity profiles of the retinal venules were unchanged downstream and upstream of the arteriovenous crossing in healthy young subjects. Because branch retinal vein occlusion frequently occurs at the arteriovenous crossing, evaluation of the blood velocity profiles in the retinal venules at the arteriovenous crossing may shed light on the pathogenesis of the branch retinal vein occlusion, which needs to be proven in future studies.

Keywords: 552 imaging methods (CT, FA, ICG, MRI, OCT, RTA, SLO, ultrasound)