Retinal vessel caliber changes in vasculitis.

BACKGROUND: Retinal vasculitis is a potentially sight-threatening inflammation of the retinal vessels, but little is known about the in vivo vascular changes, which occur in affected eyes. The authors therefore sought to measure vessel caliber in eyes with vasculitis. METHODS: Retrospective case-control study. Vasculitis was confirmed using fluorescein angiography. Vessel calibers were measured using validated semiautomated software. RESULTS: There were 21 eyes from 15 patients with vasculitis and 33 control eyes from 21 control subjects. Most cases were diagnosed with idiopathic vasculitis. All had periphlebitis, and one eye also had arteritis. After adjustment for age and gender, mean arteriolar caliber was 143 µm (95% confidence interval [CI], 134-152) in cases and 158 µm (95% CI, 151-165) in controls (P = 0.01). Venular caliber was similar in cases (229 µm; 95% CI, 215-243) and controls (228 µm; 95% CI, 217-234; P = 0.91), whereas arteriole-to-venule ratio was smaller in cases (0.63; 95% CI, 0.60-0.66) compared with controls (0.70; 95% CI, 0.02-0.11; P = 0.004). CONCLUSION: Retinal vasculitis was associated with narrower arteriolar caliber, whereas venular caliber was similar to controls. This resulted in a smaller arteriole-to-venule ratio in eyes with vasculitis.

Pupil Dilation May Affect Retinal Vessel Caliber Measures.

PURPOSE: To assess the effect of pupil dilation on measures of retinal vessel caliber. DESIGN: Observational study with self-comparisons Methods: Retinal photographs were taken for both eyes of 25 subjects before and after pupil dilation. Three photographic graders, masked to pupil dilation status, measured the same set of images using a computer-assisted, semi-automatic method. We compared means (standard deviations) of retinal arteriolar caliber equivalent (CRAE) and retinal venular caliber equivalent (CRVE) of the same eyes between pre- and post-dilation images. We assessed concordance correlation coefficients (CC), Bland Altman limits-of-agreements, and used linear mixed models to assess CRAE and CRVE measures associated with pupil dilation (influencing image quality), graders (observers) and right-left eye variation. RESULTS: We found high CCs for CRAE (0.82-0.94) and CRVE (0.87-0.94) between pre- and post-dilation images of the same eyes across the graders. Bland Altman plots showed that mean differences ranged from 0.55-3.42µm for CRAE and 1.56-2.29µm for CRVE. After adjusting for right-left eye random variation, a significant fixed effect of dilation was evident in mean CRAE in two of the three graders. There was no significant fixed effect of dilation in mean CRVE across all graders. In models including data of both eyes' measures from pre- and post-dilation images by three graders, the fixed effect for dilation status contributed significantly to CRAE and CRVE variances whereas random effects for graders and dilation status contributed minimally. CONCLUSIONS: Contrary to our hypothesis, we found a systematic effect of pupil dilation on retinal vessel caliber measures.

Do pregnant women and those at risk of developing post-natal depression consume lower amounts of long chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids?

The aims were to compare intakes of long chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (LC n-3 PUFA) in pregnant and non-pregnant women in Australia and to compare these intakes to the Australian National Nutrition Survey of 1995 (NNS95) [1] and to determine if the LC n-3 PUFA intakes differed in women who may be 'at risk' compared with women 'not at risk' of developing post-natal depression (PND). A validated LC n-3 PUFA food frequency questionnaire and pregnant women's Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) scores were used. LC n-3 PUFA intakes were comparable to the NNS95 but did not differ due to pregnancy or whether or not a woman is at risk of developing PND.