Abstract
Purpose :
The purpose of the study was to investigate retinal vascular changes in diabetic macular edema (DME) after intravitreal dexamethasone implant (IDI) using optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA).
Methods :
We included 25 DME eyes, 8 naive treatment eyes and 17 previously treated eyes with anti-VEGF treatment. Foveal avascular zone (FAZ) area of the superficial capillary plexus (SCP) and of the deep capillary plexus (DCP) was measured at baseline and after 2 and 4 months post injection. Moreover, the variation of vascular density of each layer in the foveal and parafoveal area was evaluated. Best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and central retinal thickness (CRT) were also evaluated. At 4 months retreatment was performed if macular edema was still present.
Results :
Mean BCVA significantly improved 2 months after injection (p<0,001) and also CRT showed significant improvement at 2 and 4 months (p<0,001). SCP density of the foveal area at 4 months and the SCP density of the parafoveal area at 2 months showed statistical significant difference (p<0,05). FAZ area of each layer did not modify significantly during the follow up. Only in the naive treated group a statistically significant difference was found in terms of improvement of the DCP FAZ area at 2 and 4 months (p<0,05).
Conclusions :
Retinal vascular density remain stable after steroid treatment in diabetic macular edema. FAZ area of the DCP resulted improved at 2 and 4 months after injection in the naive treated group. OCTA represents a non invasive method able to visualize separately the retinal capillary plexuses and monitor the evolution of vascular density changes.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.