Subclinical Retinal Capillary Abnormalities in Juvenile Systemic Lupus Erythematosus without Ocular Involvement

ABSTRACT

Purpose

This study aimed to evaluate subclinical retinal microvascular changes with OCTA in juvenile systemic lupus erythematosus (JSLE) patients without ocular involvement.

Methods

Ten eyes of 10 JSLE and 13 eyes of 13 age and sex-matched healthy controls (HCs) were enrolled. The superficial (SCP) and deep capillary plexus (DCP), FAZ parameters, the flow area of the outer retina, and choriocapillaris were evaluated using OCTA.

Results

All vessel density (VD) parameters in DCP were significantly lower in JSLE group compared to HCs. There was no significant difference between the groups in VD parameters of both SCP and ONH, FAZ, outer retina and choriocapillaris flow area. All DCP VD parameters showed a good ability to differentiate JSLE from HCs.

Conclusion

OCTA could detect retinal vascular impairment in the deep macular region in JSLE patients with normal ocular examination. Furthermore, all DCP VD parameters have a good ability to discriminate JSLE from HCs.

KEYWORDS:

• Deep capillary plexus
• juvenile systemic lupus erythematosus
• optical coherence tomography angiography
• retinal flow
• retinal vessel density

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Availability of data

Data available on request.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

The study was reviewed and approved by the local ethics committee of Kocaeli University (Approval number: GOKAEK-2022/07.11).

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Author contribution statement

Conceptualization: Büşra Yılmaz Tuğan, Hafize Emine Sönmez; Methodology: Büşra Yılmaz Tuğan, Hafize Emine Sönmez; Formal analysis and investigation: Büşra Yılmaz Tuğan, Levent Karabaş; Writing - original draft preparation: Büşra Yılmaz Tuğan; Writing - review and editing: Büşra Yılmaz Tuğan, Hafize Emine Sönmez, Nurşen Yüksel, Levent Karabaş; Funding acquisition: none, Resources: none; Supervision: Büşra Yılmaz Tuğan, Hafize Emine Sönmez, Nurşen Yüksel, Levent Karabaş. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.