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）血管成像下的视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改变，且该改变是否为青光眼所特有。作者团队对10名罹患各类慢性视神经病变（包括视神经炎（optic neuritis）与缺血性视神经病变（ischaemic optic neuropathy））的患者开展OCT血管成像评估，结果发现无论视神经病变的病因（aetiology）如何，所有受试患者的OCT血管成像均显示视乳头周围血管密度（peripapillary vessel density）降低。OCT血管成像观测到的视乳头周围血管丢失情况，与OCT检测到的视网膜神经纤维层（retinal nerve fibre layer）变薄区域具有良好的相关性。