Quantification of retinal microvascular parameters by severity of diabetic retinopathy using wide-field swept-source...

To investigate the diagnostic utility of microvascular parameters for grading the severity of diabetic retinopathy (DR) with a range of views using wide-field swept-source optical coherence tomography angiography (SS-OCTA).

This retrospective study grouped 235 eyes with diabetes into the five grades: diabetes without retinopathy (no-DR), mild non-proliferative DR (NPDR), moderate NPDR, severe NPDR, and proliferative DR (PDR). Foveal avascular zone (FAZ) metrics, vessel density (VD), and the capillary nonperfusion area (NPA) were quantified with a customized, semiautomatic software algorithm. Regions of interest were selected from three rectangular fields of different sizes (i.e., 3 × 3 mm², 6 × 6 mm², and 10 × 10 mm²), perpendicular to the fovea-optic disc axis.

NPA obtained from the 6 × 6mm² and 10 × 10mm² areas was the only discriminating parameter for the three NPDR stages. ROC curve analysis revealed that NPA from the 10 × 10mm² field exhibited the best performance for grading DR into five stages. The NPA cutoff values were 3.7% (area under the curve (AUC): 0.91), 4.7% (AUC: 0.94), 9.3% (AUC: 0.94), and 21.4% (AUC: 0.90) for grading no-DR, mild from moderate NPDR, moderate from severe NPDR, and severe NPDR from PDR, respectively.

Increasing DR severity as assessed by conventional grading systems is accompanied with increasing retinal ischemia on SS-OCTA. NPA measured from the larger 10 × 10 mm² scan area showed the highest sensitivity for determining five-grade DR severity. In the future, the addition of quantitative NPA may provide a more clinically feasible DR grading system.