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<h5 class="section-title" id="d808191e346">Question</h5>
<p id="d808191e348">How useful are automatically quantified nonperfusion parameters
from projection-resolved
optical coherence tomography angiography in patients with diabetes?
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<h5 class="section-title" id="d808191e351">Findings</h5>
<p id="d808191e353">In this cross-sectional study of 71 patients with diabetes and
39 healthy control
individuals, avascular areas detected from projection-resolved optical coherence tomography
angiography retinal plexuses distinguished between control individuals and various
levels of diabetic retinopathy severity. These biomarkers were less dependent on age
and signal strength and more sensitive than some commercially available vessel density
measurements.
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<h5 class="section-title" id="d808191e356">Meaning</h5>
<p id="d808191e358">Automatically quantified avascular areas from projection-resolved
optical coherence
tomography angiography of individual plexuses in patients with diabetes may offer
a more reliable, sensitive method to evaluate diabetic vascular abnormalities than
previous methods.
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<h5 class="section-title" id="d808191e362">Importance</h5>
<p id="d808191e364">Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a leading cause of vision loss that
is managed primarily
through qualitative clinical examination of the retina. Optical coherence tomography
angiography (OCTA) may offer an objective and quantitative method of evaluating DR.
</p>
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<h5 class="section-title" id="d808191e367">Objective</h5>
<p id="d808191e369">To quantify capillary nonperfusion in 3 vascular plexuses in the
macula of eyes patients
with diabetes of various retinopathy severity using projection-resolved OCTA (PR-OCTA).
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<h5 class="section-title" id="d808191e372">Design, Setting, and Participants</h5>
<p id="d808191e374">Cross-sectional study at a tertiary academic center comprising
1 eye each from healthy
control individuals and patients with diabetes at different severity stages of retinopathy.
Data were acquired and analyzed between January 2015 and December 2017.
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<h5 class="section-title" id="d808191e377">Main Outcomes and Measures</h5>
<p id="d808191e379">Foveal avascular zone area, extrafoveal avascular area (EAA),
and the sensitivity
of detecting levels of retinopathy.
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<h5 class="section-title" id="d808191e382">Results</h5>
<p id="d808191e384">The study included 39 control individuals (20 women [51%]; mean
[SD] age, 43.41 [19.37]
years); 16 patients with diabetes without retinopathy (8 women [50%]; mean [SD] age,
56.50 [12.43] years); 23 patients with mild to moderate nonproliferative DR (18 women
[78%] ; mean [SD] age, 62.48 [10.55] years); and 32 patients with severe nonproliferative
DR or proliferative DR (12 women [38%]; mean age, 53.41 [14.05] years). Mean (SD)
foveal avascular zone area was 0.203 (0.103) mm
<sup>2</sup> for control individuals, 0.192 (0.084) mm
<sup>2</sup> for patients with diabetes without retinopathy, 0.243 [0.079] mm
<sup>2</sup> for mild to moderate nonproliferative DR, and 0.359 (0.275) mm
<sup>2</sup> for severe nonproliferative DR or proliferative DR. Mean (SD) EAA in
whole inner
retinal slab in these groups, respectively, were 0.020 (0.031) mm
<sup>2</sup>, 0.034 (0.047) mm
<sup>2</sup>, 0.038 (0.040) mm
<sup>2</sup>, and 0.237 (0.235) mm
<sup>2</sup>. The mean (SD) sum of EAA from 3 segmented plexuses in each of the respective
groups
were 0.103 (0.169) mm
<sup>2</sup>, 0.213 (0.242) mm
<sup>2</sup>, 0.451 (0.243) mm
<sup>2</sup>, and 1.325 (1.140) mm
<sup>2</sup>. With specificity fixed at 95%, using EAA in inner retinal slab, the
sensitivity
of detecting patients with diabetes from healthy control individuals was 28% (95%
CI, 18%-40%), 31% for patients with DR (95% CI, 19%-45%), and 47% for patients with
severe DR (95% CI, 29%-65%) from whole inner retinal EAA. With the sum of EAA from
3 individual plexuses, the sensitivities were 69% (95% CI, 57%-80%), 82% (95% CI,
70%-91%), and 97% (95% CI, 85%-100%), respectively. Avascular areas were not associated
with signal strength index. The commercial vessel density from the 2-plexus scheme
distinguished the groups with lower sensitivity and were dependent on SSI.
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<h5 class="section-title" id="d808191e425">Conclusions and Relevance</h5>
<p id="d808191e427">Automatically quantified avascular areas from a 3-layer segmentation
scheme using
PR-OCTA distinguished levels of retinopathy with a greater sensitivity than avascular
areas from unsegmented inner retinal slab or measurements from a commercially available
vessel density in 2-layer scheme. Additional studies are needed to investigate the
applicability of nonperfusion parameters in clinical settings.
</p>
</div><p class="first" id="d808191e430">This cross-sectional study quantifies capillary
nonperfusion in 3 vascular plexuses
in the macula of eyes of patients with diabetes and various retinopathy severity using
projection-resolved optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA).
</p>