Abstract
Purpose :
To evaluate if OCT angiography (OCTA) detect infraclinical lesions in parafoveal capillaries in diabetic patients without diabetic retinopathy (DR).
Methods :
This prospective observational cross-sectional case control study analyzed the superficial and deep capillary plexuses (SCP and DCP) on macular 3x3 mm OCTA scans centered on the fovea. We compared 22 diabetic patients (34 eyes retained) without DR on color fundus photographs, with 22 age and gender-matched non-diabetic controls (40 eyes retained). The qualitative analysis searched for morphological ischemic capillary alterations. The quantitative analysis measured the foveal avascular zone (FAZ) area, the parafoveal capillary density and the coefficient of enlargement of FAZ between SCP and DCP.
Results :
None of the qualitative or quantitative parameter was significantly different between both groups. No microaneurysm or venous tortuosity was noticed. On the SCP the mean FAZ area was 0.322 ± 0.125 mm2 in diabetic patients and 0.285 ± 0.150 mm2 in controls, P = 0.31. On the DCP, the mean FAZ area was 0.444 ± 0.153 mm2 in cases and 0.398 ± 0.138 mm2 in controls, P = 0.20.
Conclusions :
in our series, OCTA did not detect infraclinical qualitative or quantitative differences in parafoveal capillaries of diabetic patients without DR in comparison with non-diabetic controls.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.