Mautuit T, Cunnac P, Truffer F, Anjos A, Dufrane R, Maître G, Geiser M, Chiquet C. Absolute retinal blood flow in healthy eyes and in eyes with retinal vein occlusion.
Microvasc Res 2024;
152:104648. [PMID:
38123065 DOI:
10.1016/j.mvr.2023.104648]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/10/2023] [Revised: 11/30/2023] [Accepted: 12/13/2023] [Indexed: 12/23/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE
To measure non-invasively retinal venous blood flow (RBF) in healthy subjects and patients with retinal venous occlusion (RVO).
METHODS
The prototype named AO-LDV (Adaptive Optics Laser Doppler Velocimeter), which combines a new absolute laser Doppler velocimeter with an adaptive optics fundus camera (rtx1, Imagine Eyes®, Orsay, France), was studied for the measurement of absolute RBF as a function of retinal vessel diameters and simultaneous measurement of red blood cell velocity. RBF was measured in healthy subjects (n = 15) and patients with retinal venous occlusion (RVO, n = 6). We also evaluated two softwares for the measurement of retinal vessel diameters: software 1 (automatic vessel detection, profile analysis) and software 2 (based on the use of deep neural networks for semantic segmentation of vessels, using a M2u-Net architecture).
RESULTS
Software 2 provided a higher rate of automatic retinal vessel measurement (99.5 % of 12,320 AO images) than software 1 (64.9 %) and wider measurements (75.5 ± 15.7 μm vs 70.9 ± 19.8 μm, p < 0.001). For healthy subjects (n = 15), all the retinal veins in one eye were measured to obtain the total RBF. In healthy subjects, the total RBF was 37.8 ± 6.8 μl/min. There was a significant linear correlation between retinal vessel diameter and maximal velocity (slope = 0.1016; p < 0.001; r2 = 0.8597) and a significant power curve correlation between retinal vessel diameter and blood flow (3.63 × 10-5 × D2.54; p < 0.001; r2 = 0.7287). No significant relationship was found between total RBF and systolic and diastolic blood pressure, ocular perfusion pressure, heart rate, or hematocrit. For RVO patients (n = 6), a significant decrease in RBF was noted in occluded veins (3.51 ± 2.25 μl/min) compared with the contralateral healthy eye (11.07 ± 4.53 μl/min). For occluded vessels, the slope between diameter and velocity was 0.0195 (p < 0.001; r2 = 0.6068) and the relation between diameter and flow was Q = 9.91 × 10-6 × D2.41 (p < 0.01; r2 = 0.2526).
CONCLUSION
This AO-LDV prototype offers new opportunity to study RBF in humans and to evaluate treatment in retinal vein diseases.
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