Non-Invasive Retinal Blood Vessel Wall Measurements with Polarization-Sensitive Optical Coherence Tomography for Diabetes Assessment: A Quantitative Study

Diabetes affects the structure of the blood vessel walls. Since the blood vessel walls are made of birefringent organized tissue, any change or damage to this organization can be evaluated using polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT). In this paper, we used PS-OCT along with th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biomolecules (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2023-08, Vol.13 (8), p.1230
Main Authors: Afsharan, Hadi, Silva, Dilusha, Joo, Chulmin, Cense, Barry
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Birefringence
blood vessel wall birefringence index (BBI)
Blood vessels
Diabetes
Diabetes mellitus
Diagnosis
Glucose
Hyperglycemia
Hypertension
Methods
Optical tomography
Patients
Polarization
PS-OCT
Retina
retinal blood vessels
retinal imaging
Sensitivity analysis
Tomography
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Summary:Diabetes affects the structure of the blood vessel walls. Since the blood vessel walls are made of birefringent organized tissue, any change or damage to this organization can be evaluated using polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT). In this paper, we used PS-OCT along with the blood vessel wall birefringence index (BBI = thickness/birefringence2) to non-invasively assess the structural integrity of the human retinal blood vessel walls in patients with diabetes and compared the results to those of healthy subjects. PS-OCT measurements revealed that blood vessel walls of diabetic patients exhibit a much higher birefringence while having the same wall thickness and therefore lower BBI values. Applying BBI to diagnose diabetes demonstrated high accuracy (93%), sensitivity (93%) and specificity (93%). PS-OCT measurements can quantify small changes in the polarization properties of retinal vessel walls associated with diabetes, which provides researchers with a new imaging tool to determine the effects of exercise, medication, and alternative diets on the development of diabetes.
ISSN:2218-273X
2218-273X
DOI:10.3390/biom13081230