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Published on: September 22, 2017
A Comparison of Hyper-Reflective Retinal Spot Counts in Optical Coherence Tomography Images from Glaucomatous and
Luciano Quaranta1, Carlo Bruttini1, Giovanni De Angelis1
1Department of Surgical & Clinical, Diagnostic and Pediatric Sciences, Section of Ophthalmology, University of Pavia-IRCCS Fondazione Policlinico San Matteo, 27100 Pavia, Italy.
Purpose:
To compare the number of hyper-reflective retinal spots (HRS) in optical coherence tomography (OCT) images of healthy controls and patients affected with primary open angle glaucoma (POAG).
Methods:
Thirty patients affected with POAG and 34 healthy controls were recruited and underwent raster OCT examination of the macular region. Among the acquired B-scans, the one with the lowest foveal thickness was selected, and a central area of 3000 μm was defined (region of interest, ROI), in order to identify HRS. HRS were defined as small point-like hyper-reflective elements, detectable at the visual inspection of the OCT image. HRS were independently counted by two investigators in the ROI of each OCT scan.
Results:
Inter-rater agreement for HRS counting was good to excellent (ICC = 0.96, 95% CI: 0.83-0.99). More HRS were found in the OCT images from glaucoma patients, in comparison with healthy controls (average value: 90.5 ± 13.02 and 74.72 ± 11.35, for glaucoma and healthy subjects, respectively; p < 0.01). Significant correlations between the average number of HRS and visual field mean deviation (MD, p = 0.01) and pattern standard deviation (PSD, p < 0.01) were found.
Conclusions:
OCT images from glaucoma patients showed a higher number of HRS when compared with healthy controls. As HRS have been hypothesized to be a sign of neuroinflammation, these results may support the role of neuroinflammation in glaucoma etiopathogenesis.
