Search

Purpose: To investigate the changes in retinal arterial architecture after treatment with voretigene neparvovec in patients with retinal dystrophy caused by bi‐allelic mutations in the RPE65 gene. Methods: Sixteen eyes treated with voretigene neparvovec at the University Eye Clinic in Tuebingen, Germany, underwent adaptive optics ophthalmoscopy (AO) imaging at baseline and 2 weeks, 1, 3, 6 and 12 months after treatment. Follow‐up was performed in six eyes of four patients. For each eye, five different positions at arterial vessels were selected and the wall‐to‐lumen ratio (WLR), the lumen diameter (LD) and the wall cross‐sectional area (WCSA) were measured by the manufacturer's software over the observational period. Results: Vast retinal atrophy dominated all gained AO images. WLR fluctuated in the observation period without statistically significant change. LD and WCSA changed significantly after 2 weeks from the baseline examination and returned to values similar to baseline thereafter. There were no signs of inflammation such as macrophages or perivascular accumulated fluid visible. Conclusion: AO imaging of the retinal vessels in RPE65‐associated retinal dystrophies (IRD) is challenging. There was no change in the retinal arterial vasculature over the observation period of 12 months that would indicate inflammatory changes. Decrease of the LD and WCSA shortly after treatment might be caused by the perioperative prednisolone intake. AO of retinal vessels can be used as a diagnostic module to complement monitoring the disease and effects of genetic treatments if the acquisition is possible in selected cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: A suspicious optic nerve head (ONH) appearance, with abnormal cupping or increased cup‐to‐disc ratio, is associated to a strong risk factor for glaucoma. Typical devices to analyse the structure of the ONH are optical coherence tomography or scanning laser ophthalmoscopy. Those devices provide parameters to describe the status of an ONH like its depth, width or volume. We show that these parameters for glaucoma diagnosis can be obtained with a commercial fundus camera using an adapted light field (LF) camera providing a one‐shot 3d retinal image. Methods: We examined a human eye (32 years, male) 5 times during one session in compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The images were taken with a fundus camera (FF450, Carl Zeiss Meditec AG, Germany) combined with an industrial LF camera (RX12, Raytrix GmbH, Germany). The generic depth estimation was performed with the Raytrix LF software (RxLive 5.0.031.0) using the Depth Raycast Light algorithm. The results were exported as 3d point lists in ascii XYZ format and for further processing imported in Matlab (R2018b, MathWorks, U.S.). The imported data were pre‐processed, the papilla midpoints automatically detected and the optic nerve head was horizontally sliced in 0.01 virtual depth steps starting from the base upwards until the papilla rim was reached. We compared the overall virtual depth, the virtual volume and the virtual area per virtual depth step, each as relative difference. Results: All LF images showed visually a very good image quality. The depth estimations were successful and covered the complete image areas. The overall virtual depth range was 95.9% to 101.4% with mean of 100% (±2.36%). The overall virtual volume range was 97.5% to 102.2% with mean of 100% (±2.1%). The area per virtual depth range was 2.5% to 174.5% with mean of 100% (±10.9%) whereas the larger deviations appeared in the lowermost slices. Conclusions: Fundus cameras with LF technique are able to provide one‐shot 3d retinal images. This light field images allow the evaluation of typical parameters for glaucoma diagnosis and show a very good reproducibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]