OCT Angiography Changes in the 3 Parafoveal Retinal Plexuses in Response to Hyperoxia

Use projection-resolved OCT angiography to investigate the autoregulatory response in the 3 parafoveal retinal plexuses under hyperoxia.

Prospective cohort study.

Nine eyes from 9 healthy participants.

One eye from each participant was scanned using a commercial spectral-domain OCT system. Two repeated macular scans (3 × 3 mm²) were acquired at baseline and during oxygen breathing. The split-spectrum amplitude-decorrelation algorithm was used to detect blood flow. The projection-resolved algorithm was used to suppress projection artifacts and resolve blood flow in 3 distinct parafoveal plexuses. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare baseline and hyperoxic parameters. The coefficient of variation, intraclass correlation coefficient, and pooled standard deviation were used to assess the reliability of OCT angiography measurements.

Flow index and vessel density were calculated from the en face angiograms of each of the 3 plexuses, as well as from the all-plexus inner retinal slab.

Hyperoxia induced significant reduction in the flow index (-11%) and vessel density (-7.8%) of only the deep capillary plexus (P < 0.001) and in the flow index of the all-plexus slab (P = 0.015). The flow index also decreased in the intermediate capillary plexus and the superficial vascular complex, but these changes were small and not statistically significant. The projection-resolved OCT angiography showed good within-session baseline repeatability (coefficient of variation, 0.8%-5.2%; intraclass correlation coefficient, 0.93-0.98) in all parameters. Relatively large between-day response reproducibility was observed (pooled standard deviation, 1.7%-9.4%).

Projection-resolved OCT angiography was able to show that the retinal autoregulatory response to hyperoxia affects only the deep capillary plexus, but not the intermediate capillary plexus or superficial vascular complex.