Response of Diabetic Macular Edema to Anti-VEGF Medications Correlates with Improvement in Macular Vessel Architecture Measured with OCT Angiography.

Purpose: Improvements in best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and central subfield thickness (CST) have been well documented after intravitreal injection of anti-VEGF medications in diabetic macular edema (DME); however, their effect on the vasculature of the macula in diabetic retinopathy (DR) remains poorly understood. Our aim was to explore the effect of intravitreal injection of anti-VEGF on parameters of retinal vascular microstructure in DR with OCT angiography (OCTA). Design: Retrospective study of adult patients with DME that were treated with anti-VEGF intravitreal injections at the University of Illinois at Chicago between 2017 and 2022. Participants: Forty-one eyes from 30 patients with nonproliferative or proliferative DR with a mean age of 58.83 ± 11.71 years, mean number of intravitreal injections of 2.8 ± 1.4, and mean follow-up of 6.5 ± 1.7 months. Methods: ImageJ was employed to measure parameters of retinal vascular microstructure in OCTA images, which included perfusion density, vessel-length density (VLD), vessel diameter, and foveal avascular zone (FAZ) characteristics (area, perimeter, and circularity). Student t tests and analysis of variance were used to determine statistical significance. Main Outcome Measures: A primary analysis was performed comparing the mean of each parameter of all patients as a single group at the beginning and end of the study period. A subgroup analysis was then performed after stratifying patients based on visual improvement, change in CST, prior injection history, and number of injections. Results: Eyes demonstrated statistical improvement in BCVA logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution score and CST after anti-VEGF treatment. Primary analysis showed a reduction in the vessel diameter of the superficial and deep retinal vasculature, as well as an increase in the circularity of the FAZ within the superficial retinal vasculature after anti-VEGF treatment. Subgroup analysis revealed that eyes with improvement in BCVA exhibited reduced vessel diameter in the superficial retinal vasculature and that eyes with the largest decrease in CST displayed increased perfusion density and VLD in the deep retinal vasculature. Conclusions: Intravitreal injection of anti-VEGF agents to treat DME improved parameters of retinal vascular microstructure on OCTA over a period of 3 to 9 months, and this effect was most pronounced in eyes that experienced improvement in BCVA and CST. Financial Disclosures: Proprietary or commercial disclosure may be found in the Footnotes and Disclosures at the end of this article.

Manifestation of Pathology in Animal Models of Diabetic Retinopathy Is Delayed from the Onset of Diabetes.

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is the most common complication that develops in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) and is the leading cause of blindness worldwide. Fortunately, sight-threatening forms of DR develop only after several decades of DM. This well-documented resilience to DR suggests that the retina is capable of protecting itself from DM-related damage and also that accumulation of such damage occurs only after deterioration of this resilience. Despite the enormous translational significance of this phenomenon, very little is known regarding the nature of resilience to DR. Rodent models of DR have been used extensively to study the nature of the DM-induced damage, i.e., cardinal features of DR. Many of these same animal models can be used to investigate resilience because DR is delayed from the onset of DM by several weeks or months. The purpose of this review is to provide a comprehensive overview of the literature describing the use of rodent models of DR in type-1 and type-2 diabetic animals, which most clearly document the delay between the onset of DM and the appearance of DR. These readily available experimental settings can be used to advance our current understanding of resilience to DR and thereby identify biomarkers and targets for novel, prevention-based approaches to manage patients at risk for developing DR.

Impact of Part-time Occlusion on Visual Outcomes in Pediatric Patients With Optic Nerve Pathology.

The visual outcomes of seven children with specific optic nerve pathologies and coexisting amblyopia after at least 1 year of part-time patching demonstrated a visual acuity improvement of greater than 0.1 logMAR. The results suggest that part-time patching may lead to improvement in visual function even in the setting of optic nerve pathology, albeit with a more limited response compared to full-time patching. [J Pediatr Ophthalmol Strabismus. 2023;60(3):e19-e21.].