Retinal Vascular Manifestations in Patients With Common Internal Diseases on Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography

Hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and dyslipidemia are common internal diseases, and all diseases are atherosclerosis risk factors. Previous studies applied color fundus photography to analyze retinal vascular changes (including exudation, hemorrhage, neovascularization, etc.) in patients with hypertension or diabetes, but the examination results could not be quantified.

This study intends to apply optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) to examine retinal vessels. This method has the following advantages: 1) It can quantify vascular changes, and 2) It is noninvasive and reproducible for patients' follow-up.

This study was designed to investigate retinal vascular changes in patients with hypertension, diabetes, and dyslipidemia on OCTA. We will collect the patients' general information (gender, age), comorbidities, medications, blood lipids, blood glucose, carotid ultrasound, ankle-brachial index, ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, color fundus photography, and OCTA results. We will follow up with the patients for five years and conduct the mentioned examinations once a year. We will also investigate the correlation between systemic atherosclerosis (such as coronary artery stenosis, and carotid artery stenosis) and retinal vasculopathy in patients with these diseases.