Imaging modalities for assessing ocular hemodynamics

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Ocular blood flow and haemodynamics are involved in the pathogenesis of several ophthalmic diseases including retinal vascular diseases and glaucoma. Multiple imaging technologies have been developed for measuring and analyzing ocular microcirculation and, among these optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) has gained a role in the clinical management of retinal diseases.

Areas covered: The aim of this review is to summarize the modalities developed for imaging and measuring ocular blood flow. We conducted a systemic search of NLM Pubmed, Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid Embase and the Cochrane Library. Relevant studies were identified and were used as sources for our study.

Expert Commentary: At present there is no gold standard for the measurement of blood flow and mostly qualitative characteristics are used in clinical scenarios. The use of quantitative characteristics is an interesting prospect as these may serve as diagnostic, prognostic or therapeutic biomarkers. The prospect of using OCTA to quantitatively assess ocular blood flow in ophthalmic patients looks promising considering its increasing use in everyday practice and its future potentials.

KEYWORDS:

• Ocular blood flow
• optical coherence tomography angiography
• confocal scanning laser Doppler flowmetry

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge Miss Panagiota Miga-Loule for her contribution in manuscript editing.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties. Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This study was not funded.