Abstract
Purpose :
The retinal arterioles are attenuated in eyes with retinitis pigmentosa (RP). However, it is not known whether the attenuation is merely due to a reduction of the lumen diameter (LD) or accompanied by thickening of the wall thickness (WT). Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine the component of the reduction of the arterioles in eyes with RP.
Methods :
This was a single-center, retrospective, cross-sectional observational study. 66 eyes of RP patients and 36 eyes of control subjects who had adaptive optics recordings of the retinal arteries were studied. The external diameter (ED) and the LD were measured. The WT was obtained by subtracting the LD from the ED, and the wall-to-lumen ratio (WLR) was calculated. The correlations between the dimensions of the arteriole and the clinical parameters were determined.
Results :
The mean LD and ED were significantly smaller in the RP patients (86.73 and 111.63 μm, respectively) than those of the controls (51.71 and 77.21 μm), while the WT was not significantly different between the RP group (24.94 μm) and control group (25.49 μm). The WLR was significantly larger in the RP group (0.520) than in the control group (0.295). The LD and ED were significantly and positively correlated with the mean deviations (MDs) of the Humphry Field Analyzer 10-2 (rho=0.479, P<0.001; rho=0.430, P<0.001, respectively) and with the width of the intact ellipsoid zone (EZ) in the OCT images (rho = 0.326, P = 0.008; rho =0.311, P = 0.011, respectively). The WT and WLR were not significantly correlated with the MDs but they were significantly and positively correlated with the age (rho = 0.318, P = 0.009; rho = 0.306, P = 0.012, respectively) and the systolic blood pressure (sBP; rho = 0.295, P = 0.016; rho = 0.324, P=0.008, respectively).
Conclusions :
The reduced thickness of the retinal arterioles in eyes with RP is not accompanied by the arterial wall thickening. This suggests that there would be a decrease in the blood flow to the inner retina which may be caused by the thinner retina in RP eyes
This abstract was presented at the 2024 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, WA, May 5-9, 2024.