Abstract
Introduction: Our aim is to examine the clinical value of spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (Spectralis OCT) to detect retinal nerve fibre layer defects in patients with clinically defined Alzheimer‘s disease (AD).Material and Methods: This cross-sectional study included 22 patients with AD (mean age: 75.9 ± 6.1 years) and 22 healthy age- and sex-matched controls. Neuro-ophthalmologic examinations and a series of high-resolution OCT examinations of the peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness using the Spectralis 3.5-mm circle scan protocol with ART-Modus and eye tracking were obtained, and compared to age- and sex-matched healthy control subjects.Results: Patients with AD showed a significant decrease in RNFL thickness in the nasal superior sector compared to the control group (101.0 ± 18.18 μm versus 122.8 ± 28.08 μm; P < 0.0001). In all other sectors, independently of disease duration, no significant difference in RNFL thickness compared to controls was detected. Using the advanced age- and gender-matched measurement model, 32 out of 42 eyes (76.19%) as pathologic with 67 abnormal sectors were detected.Discussion: As examined by spectral-domain OCT, patients with mild to moderate stages of AD showed a significant reduction of RNFL thickness in the nasal superior sector. Nevertheless, successive studies are needed.
Highlights
Our aim is to examine the clinical value of spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (Spectralis OCT) to detect retinal nerve fibre layer defects in patients with clinically defined Alzheimer‘s disease (AD)
As examined by spectral-domain OCT, patients with mild to moderate stages of AD showed a significant reduction of retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness in the nasal superior sector
Using the standard normative database of the spectral-domain OCT (SD-OCT) device, the retinal nerve fiber layer thickness (RNFLT) measurements compared for each patient of the study group showed no RNFLT reduction neither globally nor in any of the peripapillary sectors (P > 0.05) except for one peripapillary sector of one eye where the SD-OCT software identified a significant reduction in RNFLT (Table 2, Figures 1 and 2)
Summary
Our aim is to examine the clinical value of spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (Spectralis OCT) to detect retinal nerve fibre layer defects in patients with clinically defined Alzheimer‘s disease (AD). OCT allows for a non-invasive visualization of axons of the central nervous system (CNS) providing cross-section imaging of the retina and is able to measure the retinal nerve fiber layer thickness (RNFLT) [14, 15]. It has been used for the diagnosis of many retinal and optic nerve diseases including the glaucomas [16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23]. It was shown that RNFLT was reduced in particular in the superior quadrant of the peripapillary retina [26], in addition to changes in macula thickness and volume [12]
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