Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography Evaluation of Ocular Changes in Patients With Carotid Artery Stenosis

Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography Evaluation of Ocular Changes in Patients With Carotid Artery Stenosis

This study aims to evaluate ocular changes in patients with carotid artery stenosis by optical coherence tomography angiography before and after carotid artery revascularization procedure.

A growing body of research indicates that abnormal ocular microvascular features may serve as a novel biomarker reflecting the severity of underlying cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, and microvascular disease. Since blood flow to the retina is predominantly supplied by the internal carotid artery (ICA), we hypothesized that ocular microvasculature and structure changes may reflect the disease status or therapeutic effects in patients with carotid artery stenosis.

Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) is a novel, non-invasive imaging modality that can be a reliable tool for the qualitative and quantitative assessments of ocular vessels during various ocular pathological or physiological changes. Recent studies have also demonstrated the ability of OCTA to quantify retinal microvascular changes in monitoring cardiovascular risk.

This study aims to evaluate ocular changes in patients with carotid artery stenosis by optical coherence tomography angiography before and after carotid artery revascularization procedure.In this study, the patients with carotid artery stenosis and control group will receive a series of cerebral and ocular examinations including the most important cerebral CT perfusion (CTP) and OCTA. After that, the cerebral and ocular data between the two groups will be compared. Also, the preoperative and postoperative data acquired will be compared.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Clinical diagnosis of carotid artery stenosis
• Age-gender-race-matched controls

Exclusion Criteria:

• age <18 years
• intraocular pressure (IOP) >21 mmHg
• VA >logMAR 1.0
• spherical equivalent (SE) between >1.00 or < -6.00 D
• other serious eye diseases which may affect OCTA results including diabetic retinopathy, hypertensive retinopathy, retinal vascular occlusion, age-related macular degeneration, and uveitis
• major intraocular surgery performed in the past 6 months or a history of laser photocoagulation or intravitreal injection
• glaucoma or first-degree relatives with a history of glaucoma; and
• any disease that might cause poor scan quality (image quality <6).