ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Cell Dev. Biol.
Sec. Molecular and Cellular Pathology
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcell.2025.1654159
This article is part of the Research TopicArtificial Intelligence Applications in Chronic Ocular Diseases, Volume IIView all 50 articles
Early diagnosis of coronary heart disease based on retinal microvascular parameters of OCTA
Provisionally accepted
- 1Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Ningbo, China
- 2University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- 3The First Affiliated Hospital of Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
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Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a leading cause of cardiovascular mortality worldwide, and its early diagnosis is essential for prevention and treatment. Emerging evidence from ocular imaging suggests that structural and functional alterations in the retinal vasculature may mirror systemic vascular changes, offering a promising avenue for the early identification of cardiovascular conditions such as CAD. Among these techniques, OCTA stands out as a non-invasive, highresolution modality capable of capturing detailed microvascular architecture and quantifying retinal blood flow dynamics. In this study, we analyzed OCTA images from 747 participants including 332 patients with CAD and 415 controls to extract retinal microvascular parameters and evaluate their associations with disease status. The results revealed that patients with CAD exhibited significantly lower retinal vessel density, vessel length density, tortuosity, and vascular bifurcation complexity on OCTA compared to controls, particularly in the left eye. This suggests possible lateral asymmetry in microvascular responses associated with CAD. Overall, we highlight the potential of OCTA-derived retinal biomarkers in supporting the early diagnosis of CAD, providing a standard tool for future clinical services and research. Biomarkers in retinal OCTA images can provide useful information for clinical decision making and diagnosis of CAD.
Keywords: Coronary Artery Disease, Retinal vasculature, optical coherence tomography angiography, Retinal microvascular parameters, biomarkers
Received: 26 Jun 2025; Accepted: 23 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhou, Yan, Guo, He and Zhao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Qifeng Yan, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Ningbo, China
Wenming He, The First Affiliated Hospital of Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
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