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Trabecular Meshwork Response to Pressure Elevation in the Living Human Eye
Published on: June 20, 2015
Effect of Intraorbital Mechanical Compression on Retinal Microvascular Perfusion in Quiescent Thyroid-Associated
Wei Fang1, Ziyun Zhou1, Zhenbin Qian1
1National Clinical Research Center for Ocular Diseases, Eye Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, 325027, China.
Introduction:
To analyze the correlation between orbital compliance and retinal vessel density (VD) based on dynamic Scheimpflug analyzer (Corvis ST) and optical coherence tomographic angiography (OCT-A).
Methods:
In this prospective observational study, 65 eyes of 44 patients with thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy (TAO) in quiescent stage were included (15 males and 29 females). The whole eye movement (WEM) was detected by Corvis ST. The superficial capillary plexus VD (SCP-VD) and deep capillary plexus VD (DCP-VD) were obtained by scanning the 3 × 3 mm area around the fovea using OCT-A, while the peripapillary vessel density (ppVD) was obtained by scanning the 4.5 × 4.5 mm area around the optic disk. Covariances including biomechanically corrected intraocular pressure (bIOP), axial length, age and gender were adjusted during data analysis.
Results:
The mean WEM of the participants was 0.235 ± 0.066 mm. The mean SCP-VD and DCP-VD in whole image were 46.20% ± 3.77% and 50.51% ± 3.96%; the mean whole pp-VD was 49.75% ± 2.01%. WEM was positively correlated with SCP-VD (r = 0.327, p = 0.01) and the whole pp-VD (r = 0.394, p < 0.01) after adjusting by gender, axial length (AL), age and bIOP, but it was not significantly correlated with DCP-VD (r = 0.072 p = 0.581).
Conclusion:
Increase in orbital pressure might reduce retinal microvascular perfusion. Our data suggest orbital mechanical compression may be an important cause of retinal VD changes in quiescent patients with TAO.
