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Updated: Jun 16, 2025
Retinal Vascular Reactivity as Assessed by Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography
Published on: March 26, 2020
Evaluation of Retinal Arterial Occlusion and its Visual and Systemic Prognosis after Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
Fritz Gerald P Kalaw1,2,3, Nicholas Chartrand4, Lauren Wedekind5
1Jacobs Retina Center, University of California San Diego, California, United States of America, 92093.
Purpose:
To evaluate the systemic and ocular outcomes of patients with branch retinal artery occlusion (BRAO) and central retinal artery occlusion (CRAO) after hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT).
Methods:
This is a single-institution study of 75 subjects diagnosed with BRAO (28, 37.3%) and CRAO (47, 62.7%) who visited the emergency department or stroke clinic. Twenty-seven (36%) subjects received HBOT on initial presentation (BRAO-14.3%, CRAO-48.9%). The primary outcome was the best corrective visual acuity (BCVA) change in non-HBOT and HBOT subjects. Secondary outcomes included subsequent development of an acute cerebrovascular accident (CVA)/stroke or neovascular glaucoma (NVG).
Results:
Overall BCVA did not change from the initial presentation to the final timepoint (logMAR 1.5) in either the conservative management or HBOT cohorts for either BRAO subjects (non-HBOT-logMAR 0.4 vs. 0.6, p=0.658; HBOT-logMAR 0.1 vs. 0.4, p=0.207) or CRAO subjects (non-HBOT-logMAR 2.1 vs. 2.2, p=0.755; HBOT-logMAR 2.1 vs. 2.0, p=0.631). Seven (9.3%) subjects developed CVA (BRAO: non-HBOT-4.2% and HBOT-25.0%, p=0.207; CRAO: non-HBOT-16.7% and HBOT-4.3%, p=0.348) and five subjects (6.7%) developed NVG (BRAO: non-HBOT-4.2% and HBOT-0%, p=1.00; CRAO: non-HBOT-16.7% and HBOT-0%, p=0.109).
Conclusions:
Our findings suggest that HBOT does not significantly improve BCVA or mitigate the subsequent development of stroke and NVG in patients with RAOs.
