A low degree of polarization uniformity (DOPU) and high double pass phase retardation (DPPR) values below the retinal-pigment epithelium – Bruch membrane’s (RPE-BM) complex in the human retina have been associated with the presence of melanin. Our polarimetry measurements (Cense et al, JBP, 2018) found no correlation between melanin and lower DOPU, because all young subjects had high DOPU values, but saw decreased DOPU in a subset of older subjects, who also have melanin. We hypothesize that this signal is not induced by melanin, but by a substance related to hypertension. Our measurements demonstrated a strong correlation between hypertensives and high DPPR values induced by the RPE-BM complex, suggesting that the induced retardance is the result of physiological changes associated with hypertension. This signal may be useful as a biomarker for screening of cardiovascular diseases.
Preliminary data obtained with PS-OCT through the eyes of hypertensives suggests a mechanistic connection between arterial health and hypertension. In this study we want to determine whether arterial health may be more predictive of negative clinical outcomes than hypertension and blood glucose. Patients with various stages of hypertension, diabetes and coronary artery disease were recruited from Fiona Stanley Hospital (Perth). They were subsequently imaged with PS-OCT. The data were analyzed for retinal vessel wall thickness and vessel wall birefringence. We demonstrated that the combination of blood vessel wall tissue structure and wall thickness, a recognized clinical biomarker (Afsharan et al, BOE, 2021), could diagnose hypertension and diabetes with high sensitivity and specificity. PS-OCT measurements can detect the smallest changes related to cardiovascular disease in the retina before the disease manifests itself clinically. The method is cheap, noninvasive and easy to apply, which makes it highly suitable for screening, especially in underserved communities.
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