Correlation between Flicker-Induced Retinal Vessel Vasodilatation and Plasma Biomarkers of Endothelial Dysfunction in...

Hypertension (HT) strongly affects the vascular endothelium, resulting in chronic inflammatory disease. Dynamic vessel analysis (DVA) is a modern methodological approach to analyze vascular function in the retinal microcirculation. The aim of this study was to examine whether a defective retinal vessels response is associated with HT-induced endothelial dysfunction.

Retinal vessel reactions to flicker stimulation were examined by DVA in both eyes of 37 hypertensive and 41 healthy control subjects. Plasma concentrations of C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-6, and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFɑ) were measured using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.

Both arterial and vein responses to flicker stimulation were significantly decreased in patients with HT compared with the healthy controls (dilatation of the arteries was lower in the HT group by, on average, 1.31, p = 0.001 and dilatation of the veins was lower in the HT group by, on average, 1.32, p = 0.002) after independent adjustment for age, sex, body mass index, and pressure values. In the hypertensive group, there was a negative correlation between the arterial response to flicker stimulation and the plasma CRP concentration (Spearman's Rank-order Coefficient (Rs) = -0.29, p = 0.07). Similarly, the plasma TNFα concentrations negatively correlated with the arterial response to flicker stimulation (Rs = -0.39, p = 0.02).

Our results indicate that DVA directly reflects the actual metabolic status of the retinal endothelium. DVA might be used as an early noninvasive screening tool to detect vascular dysregulation and pan-endothelial dysfunction in patients with HT.