Abstract
Purpose :
Blood flow deficiencies of the retinal and retrobulbar circulations have been previously reported in open angle glaucoma (OAG) and other eye diseases. Herein we investigated the effects of image brightness and contrast Dynamic Altering Stimuli (DAS) when viewing a video content on ocular blood flow, intraocular pressure (IOP), and ocular perfusion pressure (OPP) in OAG and healthy subjects.
Methods :
Thirty-five subjects, 25 OAG and 10 healthy controls were evaluated for blood pressure, IOP, OPP, and retinal capillary blood flow before, immediately after, 30 minutes after, and 60 minutes after using ReviView™ (a dichoptic video goggles device) that stimulates one eye with a dynamically altered video image that is brighter and with greater contrast than to the fellow eye (duration of exposure 30 minutes). Differences between each subject’s eyes, and between OAG and healthy subjects were evaluated using paired t-tests with p<0.05 considered statistically significant.
Results :
All subjects demonstrated a significant increase in OPP in both eyes immediately following viewing. Comparing all eyes of OAG patients to healthy subjects at baseline, all retinal capillary blood flow values were significantly different, with higher superior and inferior blood flow (superior: p=0.0032; inferior: p=0.0257) and lower percentage of superior and inferior avascular area (superior: p=0.0005; inferior: p=0.0010) in healthy subjects compared to glaucomatous ones. In all DAS eyes, retinal capillary blood flow rose immediately after stimulation and remained elevated for an hour post viewing. Viewing dynamically altered contrast and light levels increased retinal blood flow in DAS eyes compared to fellow eyes (p= 0.0014, 0.0135 superiorly and p= 0.0094, 0.0001 inferiorly, at 30 and 60min respectively). OAG eyes had a significant reduction in number of superior dormant retinal capillaries (p=0.0174) while healthy eyes demonstrated a larger increase in retinal capillary blood flow (p=0.0006 and 0.0093 at 60 minutes, superior and inferior, respectively).
Conclusions :
In both healthy subjects and patients with OAG, viewing DAS video for 30 minutes using ReviView™ increased retina blood flow.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.