We evaluated the usefulness of central retinal artery Doppler ultrasonography for assessing the patients with sudden visual disturbance that's caused by retinal vascular occlusion. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The blood flow velocity and the resistive and pulsatile indexes were measured at the central retinal arteries of 65 patients with sudden visual disturbance. For all the subjects, the patient's affected eye was compared with the non-affected eye. We investigated the efficacy of the Doppler ultrasonography parameters to predict a significant visual loss on the Snellen test (<20/400).

A significantly lower central retinal arterial flow velocity was measured in the affected eye as compared with the unaffected normal eye for all the subjects (p < 0.05). The ROC curves showed that the mean velocity was the best parameter to predict significant visual loss (p < 0.05). If a mean velocity of 4.3 cm/sec was chosen as the cutoff value to predict significant visual loss, then the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and accuracy were 89%, 95%, 95%, 88% and 92%, respectively (estimated area = 0.958, p-value <0.01).

Central retinal artery Doppler ultrasonography was helpful for predicting significant visual loss in patients who complain of sudden visual disturbance. In addition to the other ophthalmologic diagnostic modalities, Doppler ultrasonography may be a feasible modality to depict impending further visual loss of an ischemic origin.