%0 Journal Article
%T Detection of capillary abnormalities in early diabetic retinopathy using scanning laser ophthalmoscopy and optical coherence tomography combined with adaptive optics.
%A Torm MEW
%A Pircher M
%A Bonnin S
%A Johannesen J
%A Klefter ON
%A Schmidt MF
%A Frederiksen JL
%A Lefaudeux N
%A Andilla J
%A Valdes C
%A Loza-Alvarez P
%A Brea LS
%A De Jesus DA
%A Grieve K
%A Paques M
%A Larsen M
%A Gocho K
%J Sci Rep
%V 14
%N 1
%D 2024 06 11
%M 38862584
%F 4.996
%R 10.1038/s41598-024-63749-7
%X This study tested if a high-resolution, multi-modal, multi-scale retinal imaging instrument can provide novel information about structural abnormalities in vivo. The study examined 11 patients with very mild to moderate non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) and 10 healthy subjects using fundus photography, optical coherence tomography (OCT), OCT angiography (OCTA), adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscopy (AO-SLO), adaptive optics OCT and OCTA (AO-OCT(A)). Of 21 eyes of 11 patients, 11 had very mild NPDR, 8 had mild NPDR, 2 had moderate NPDR, and 1 had no retinopathy. Using AO-SLO, capillary looping, inflections and dilations were detected in 8 patients with very mild or mild NPDR, and microaneurysms containing hyperreflective granular elements were visible in 9 patients with mild or moderate NPDR. Most of the abnormalities were seen to be perfused in the corresponding OCTA scans while a few capillary loops appeared to be occluded or perfused at a non-detectable flow rate, possibly because of hypoperfusion. In one patient with moderate NPDR, non-perfused capillaries, also called ghost vessels, were identified by alignment of corresponding en face AO-OCT and AO-OCTA images. The combination of multiple non-invasive imaging methods could identify prominent microscopic abnormalities in diabetic retinopathy earlier and more detailed than conventional fundus imaging devices.