ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Ophthalmology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1585907
This article is part of the Research TopicNew Concepts, Advances, and Future Trends in Clinical Research on Eye DiseasesView all 38 articles
Alterations in the blood flow of the optic nerve head in patients with thyroid eye disease using optic coherence tomography angiography
Provisionally accepted
- First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Introduction: To evaluate blood flow changes in the optic nerve head (ONH) of patients with thyroid eye disease (TED) using optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA). Methods: Overall, 59and 39 eyes from 59 patients with TED and 39 healthy controls (HCs), respectively, were recruited. Patients with TED were categorized into active and inactive groups based on clinical activity score. All participants underwent ophthalmological and endocrinological tests. Peripapillary vessel density (VD) and retinal nerve fiber layer thickness (RNFLT) were measured using OCTA. All eyes underwent a 4.5 * 4.5-mm scan pattern centered on the ONH. The peripapillary region was divided into eight sectors: superior nasal (SN), nasal upper (NU), nasal lower (NL), inferior nasal (IN), inferior temporal (IT), temporal lower (TL), temporal upper (TU), and superior temporal (ST). Correlation analysis was used to explore the association between blood flow changes and relevant factors. Results: Compared with HCs, inactive eyes had a lower radial peripapillary capillary VD and a significant difference in vessel density in the SN and ST sectors of the peripapillary region (P<0.05). No differences were observed in the peripapillary RNFLT between the groups. There was no significant correlation between the whole peripapillary VD and RNFLT or visual functional parameters. Visual acuity impairment was positively correlated with IN-VD, NU-VD, ST-VD, and NU-RNFLT in the peripapillary region. Intraocular pressure was positively correlated with IN-RNFLT. Conclusions: OCTA can detect microvascular ONH changes in patients with TED .
Keywords: Thyroid eye disease, Peripapillary vessel density, retinal nerve fiber layer thickness, optic coherence tomography angiography, Radial peripapillary capillaries
Received: 10 Mar 2025; Accepted: 30 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Cao, Liao and Fang. 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:
Rongfeng Liao, First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
Chengbo Fang, First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.