Abstract
Purpose :
To investigate the parafoveal retinal blood vessel area and density at different layers and the area of the foveal avascular zone (FAZ) in normal individuals and patients with unilateral idiopathic macular hole (IMH) using swept-source optical coherence tomography angiography (OCT-A).
Methods :
25 patients (22 females, 3 males，mean age 62 years) with unilateral idiopathic macular hole who had undergone vitrectomy and 30 age- and sex-matched healthy subjects were recruited. The parafoveal flow area and vessel density of superficial and deep retina were measured by spectral-domain optical coherence tomography Angiography (OCTA). Foveal avascular zone (FAZ) were quantified on en-face OCT images by using image J.
Results :
The superficial retina vessel area of healthy control eyes, IMH eyes and unaffected fellow eyes were 2.539±0.4213 mm2, 2.010±0.658 mm2 and 1.880±0.660 mm2, respectively. And the retinal blood vessel density of the three groups were 54.083±9.76%, 43.207±13.81% and 39.964±13.99%, respectively. The parafoveal retina vessel area and density at superficial layer were significantly lower in both eyes of MH patients than healthy control eyes (p<0.001), but not difference were found between IMH and unaffected fellow eyes. The area and density of deep retinal capillary exhibited a same trend that both eyes of MH patients were lower than healthy eyes. The parafoveal blood perfusion were not changed after vitrectomy. The FAZ area in male and female healthy control was 0.416±0.103 mm2 and 0.545±0.165 mm2 in female, respectively, and in female IMH patients, the FAZ area of unaffected fellow eyes was 0.611±0.203 mm2. The FAZ area was in healthy larger in females than in males (p<0.001, Mann Whitney test). No significant difference was found between female healthy eyes and female unaffected fellow eyes.
Conclusions :
In this study, OCT-A identified a reduction of parafoveal perfusion at superficial and deep retinal capillary network in both eyes of IMH patients. The alteration of retinal microcirculation in macular hole might be related with the pathogenesis of idiopathic macular hole.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.