Abstract
Purpose :
Embryologically, the retina is an extension of the diencephalon, and both retina and brain share a similar pattern of vascularization during development. Investigative techniques used to study cerebral vasculature are expensive, and are only available in specialized medical centers, while the retinal vasculature can be directly visualized in vivo, and then photographed (Patton et al. 2005). Due to the homology between the retinal vasculature and cerebral vasculature and the simplicity of retinal imaging analyses, the findings of retinal vasculature examinations can be used as proper markers of cerebrovascular diseases. The purpose of this present study was to investigate the relationships between central retinal artery equivalent, internal carotid artery, and middle cerebral artery in the vessel diameter.
Methods :
This study involved 53 patients (23 males, mean age: 52.1±8.6 years, and 29 females, mean age: 53.1±5.2years), who underwent a medical checkup of the brain at Murakami Memorial Asahi University, Gifu, Japan in 2013. Of those, we selected the 25 patients (18 males, mean age: 52.2±9.3 years, and 7 females, mean age: 53.6±5.8 years) with a normal body mass index and blood pressure based on health examination data. The magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data of the middle cerebral artery diameter and internal carotid artery diameter were then measured using EV Lite software. For both arteries, we chose two locations on the left and right side, and then averaged the data. IVAN software was then used to measure the central retinal artery equivalent. The relationships among the three vascular diameters were then examined using the correlation coefficient.
Results :
The correlation coefficients between the internal carotid artery diameter and the middle cerebral artery diameter were 0.40 (p<0.05, left eye) and 0.43 (p<0.05, right eye). The correlation coefficients between the central retinal artery equivalent and the internal carotid artery diameter were -0.11 (p=-0.30, left eye) and 0.05 (p=0.60, right eye), and between the central retinal artery equivalent and the middle cerebral artery diameter were -0.14 (p=0.25, left eye) and -0.31 (p=0.06, right eye).
Conclusions :
The correlation coefficients showed no strong association between the central retinal artery equivalent measured by retinal imaging and cerebral artery diameters calculated from the MRI and magnetic resonance angiogram images.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.