Abstract
Abstract: :
Purpose: To investigate the presence of differences in retinal optical section image resolution and high-order ocular aberrations between healthy normal and diabetic subjects. Methods: An optical imaging system was utilized to provide simultaneous retinal optical section images and measurement of ocular aberrations. For optical section retinal imaging, a cylindrical lens was placed in the path of the incident laser beam to form a focused line on the retina. Due to the angle between the incident laser and imaging path, an optical section image of the retina was captured. For ocular aberrations, a Shack-Hartmann aberrometer was incorporated in the imaging system. Ten subjects with diabetes, with an average age of 50 ± 9 years and 10 normal subjects with an average age of 47 ± 8 were imaged by the system (P = 0.3). Retinal optical section image resolution was determined from the width of the laser line reflected from the vitreo-retinal interface. The wavefront error was determined from the root mean square of third to seventh order Zernike terms, characterizing high order ocular aberrations. The data were analyzed statistically using Student's t-test and linear regression. Results: A statistically significant difference in the laser width was found between the normal (65± 13 microns) and diabetic (92± 27 microns) subjects (P = 0.01). High order ocular aberrations in diabetic subjects were significantly higher than normal subjects (P = 0.03). The laser line width was correlated with the wavefront error (r = 0.7; P < 0.001; N = 20). Conclusions: The preliminary results suggest disease-related increases in high order ocular aberrations influence retinal image resolution in diabetic eyes. This information is useful for designing high resolution retinal imaging systems applicable in disease and for differentiating optical and neural factors that contribute to vision loss.
Keywords: imaging methods (CT, FA, ICG, MRI, OCT, RTA, S • optical properties • diabetes