Analysis of Retinal Vascular Calibers with Cardiovascular Risk Factors

Kyung Hyun Jin; Jae Ho Shin; Ja Heon Kang

doi:10.3341/jkos.2015.56.6.925

Journal List > J Korean Ophthalmol Soc > v.56(6) > 1010307

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Jin, Shin, and Kang: Analysis of Retinal Vascular Calibers with Cardiovascular Risk Factors

Original Article

J Korean Ophthalmol Soc 2015;56(6):925-930.

Published online: 7 September 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3341/jkos.2015.56.6.925

Analysis of Retinal Vascular Calibers with Cardiovascular Risk Factors

Kyung Hyun Jin, MD, Jae Ho Shin, MD, PhD, Ja Heon Kang, MD, PhD

Department of Ophthalmology, Kyung Hee University Hospital at Gangdong, Kyung Hee University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

Address reprint requests to Ja Heon Kang, MD, PhD Department of Ophthalmology, Kyung Hee University Hospital at Gangdong, #892 Dongnam-ro, Gangdong-gu, Seoul 134-727, Korea, Tel: 82-2-440-7760, Fax: 82-2-440-7756 E-mail: pbloadsky@naver.com

Received 13 December 20147 March 2015 Accepted 12 May 2015

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

To analyze the association between retinal vascular caliber and cardiovascular risk factors including smoking, blood pressure, diabetes and age.

Methods

This study included 60 Korean male participants 40-69 years of age. The retinal vessel caliber was measured using computer-assisted fundus photography. Four vessels coursing through the area of one half disc diameter from the optic disc margin were measured. Additionally, we analyzed the association between the retinal vessel caliber and risk factors including smoking, diabetes, hypertension and age.

Results

Smoking was not significantly associated with retinal vessel calibers. The diabetes group showed larger average retinal vessel calibers than normal group, but veins were significantly wider (p < 0.05). The average retinal vessel caliber was wider and inferior vein and artery were significantly larger in the hypertension group (p < 0.05). Although the retinal vessel caliber increased with age, significance was observed only in the superior artery (p < 0.05).

Conclusions

In our study, retinal vessel caliber was easily measured using a semi-automatic computer program. This method should prove useful in further studies examining the correlation among retinal vessel caliber variations in many localized ophthalmologic disorder.

Keywords: Branch retinal artery, Branch retinal vein, Cardiovascular risk factor, Retinal vessel caliber

References

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Figure 1.

The masurement of the retinal vessel caliber using computer-assisted method on fundus photography. Inferior and superior temporal veins and arteries coursing through the area of one half disc diameter from the optic disc margin were measured.

Table 1.

Patients demographics

	Normal	Smoker	DM	HTN	Total
No. of subject	15	15	15	15	60
40-49 years	5	5	5	5	20
50-59 years	5	5	5	5	20
60-69 years	5	5	5	5	20
Age (year)	53.5	53.7	53.5	54	53.8
Systolic BP (mm Hg)	123.3	119.4	121.9	120.1	121.2
Diastolic BP (mm Hg)	79.4	74.8	76.6	74.9	76.4
FBS (mg/dL)	103	94.1	131.9	95.6	106.1
HbA1c (%)	5.44	5.32	7.01	5.31	5.77

DM = diabetes mellitus; HTN = hypertension; BP =blood pressure; FBS = fasting blood sugar.

Table 2.

The average data of the retinal vessel caliber by diseases (μ m)

	Inf. temporal		Sup. temporal
		Vein	Artery	Vein	Artery
Normal	16.68 ± 1.91	11.57 ± 1.38	16.40 ± 2.53	11.05 ± 1.57
Smoker	17.12 ± 2.39 (0.439)	11.38 ± 1.76 (0.658)	16.20 ± 2.44 (0.752)	11.10 ± 1.67 (0.906)
DM	18.40 ± 1.62 (<0.001)	12.40 ± 1.99 (0.064)	18.15 ± 2.35 (0.008)	11.94 ± 1.92 (0.053)
HTN	17.95 ± 2.12 (0.018)	13.04 ± 1.47 (<0.001)	17.56 ± 1.99 (0.054)	12.20 ± 1.64 (0.007)

Values are presented as mean ± SD (p-value).

Inf. = inferior; Sup. = superior; DM = diabetes mellitus; HTN = hypertension.

Table 3.

The average data of the retinal vessel caliber by age (μ m)

	Inf. temporal		Sup. temporal
	Vein	Artery	Vein	Artery
40-59 years	17.33 ± 2.06	11.95 ± 1.76	17.01 ± 2.39	11.29 ± 1.73
60-69 years	18.00 ± 2.20	12.41 ± 1.80	17.23 ± 2.59	12.19 ± 1.67
p-value	0.118	0.195	0.652	0.008

Values are presented as mean ± SD.

Inf. = inferior; Sup. = superior.

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