Baseline macular thickness correlates more strongly with changes in retinal capillary blood flow in open angle glaucoma patients with diabetes mellitus after 4 years

Abstract

Purpose : To examine the relationship between baseline macular thickness and changes in retinal capillary blood flow in open angle glaucoma (OAG) patients with and without diabetes mellitus (DM) over 4 years.

Methods : 82 patients with OAG (16 with DM, 66 without DM) were evaluated for baseline macular thickness by optical coherence tomography and retinal capillary blood flow by Heidelberg retinal flowmetry (HRF) every 6 months for 4 years. Pearson correlations were used to test for associations between measurements with p<0.05 considered statistically significant.

Results : In OAG patients with DM, baseline outer nasal macular thickness (r=-0.64, p<0.01), inner nasal macular thickness (r=-0.77, p<0.00), outer temporal macular thickness (r=-0.53, p<0.04), and inner temporal macular thickness (r=-0.77, p<0.00) were negatively and significantly correlated with changes in the percentage of avascular area in the superior retina. In non-DM patients, these relationships were weakly correlated and significantly different compared to OAG patients with DM (all comparisons p<0.05). The percentage of avascular area in the inferior retina did not differ significantly between groups.

Conclusions : In OAG patients with DM, lower baseline macular thickness was associated with decreasing retinal capillary blood flow after 4 years.

This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.