Optical Coherence Angiographic Demonstration of Retinal Changes From Chronic Optic Neuropathies

Glaucoma causes a decrease in peripapillary perfused capillary density on optical coherence tomography (OCT) angiography. However, other chronic optic neuropathies have not been explored with OCT angiography to see if these changes were specific to glaucoma. The authors evaluated OCT angiography in 10 patients who suffered various kinds of chronic optic neuropathies, including optic neuritis and ischaemic optic neuropathy, and found that all optic neuropathies showed a decrease in peripapillary vessel density on OCT angiography, regardless of the aetiology of the optic neuropathy. The peripapillary vessel loss on OCT angiography correlated well with the areas of retinal nerve fibre layer thinning seen on OCT.

青光眼可导致光学相干断层扫描（optical coherence tomography, OCT）血管成像下的乳头周围灌注毛细血管密度（peripapillary perfused capillary density）降低。然而，目前尚未有研究通过OCT血管成像探究其他慢性视神经病变是否存在此类青光眼特异性改变。本研究作者对10例罹患各类慢性视神经病变（包括视神经炎与缺血性视神经病变）的患者进行了OCT血管成像评估，结果发现无论视神经病变的病因（aetiology）如何，所有受试病变均表现出OCT血管成像下的乳头周围血管密度（peripapillary vessel density）降低。此外，OCT血管成像所见的乳头周围血管丢失情况，与OCT扫描显示的视网膜神经纤维层变薄（retinal nerve fibre layer thinning）区域具有良好的相关性。