The surprising eye test which reveals heart disease

This month’s featured article discusses an interesting study from 2021, which demonstrated the potential to analyse a risk factor of cardiovascular diseases via an OCT scan. Hundreds of images calculate the number of RIPLs on the retina, which then indicate the aforementioned risk. The impacts of this could be wide ranging, as OCT scans are relatively inexpensive, and are non-invasive procedures.

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This video is made for educational purposes.

The principal study, published by Elsevier and accessed via The Lancet, is referenced is below:

Prevalence of subclinical retinal ischemia in patients with cardiovascular disease – a hypothesis driven study
Author: Christopher P. Long,Alison X. Chan,Christine Y. Bakhoum,Christopher B. Toomey,Samantha Madala,Anupam K. Garg,William R Freeman,Michael H. Goldbaum,Anthony N. DeMaria,Mathieu F. Bakhoum
Publication: EClinicalMedicine
Publisher: Elsevier
Date: March 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.100775


Image credits from studies and other locations are below:

Liu X, Kale AU, Capewell N, et al, 'Optical coherence tomography (OCT) in unconscious and systemically unwell patients using a mobile OCT device: a pilot study', BMJ Open 2019;9:e030882. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2019-030882
Goyal, Mallika et al. “Retinal manifestations in patients following COVID-19 infection: A consecutive case series.” Indian journal of ophthalmology vol. 69,5 (2021): 1275-1282. doi:10.4103/ijo.IJO_403_21

Giovannini, A et al. “OCT imaging of choroidal neovascularisation and its role in the determination of patients' eligibility for surgery.” The British journal of ophthalmology vol. 83,4 (1999): 438-42. doi:10.1136/bjo.83.4.438

Ibrahim, M A et al. “Spectral- and time-domain optical coherence tomography measurements of macular thickness in normal eyes and in eyes with diabetic macular edema.” Eye (London, England) vol. 26,3 (2012): 454-62. doi:10.1038/eye.2011.293

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blood_on_1000x_Microscope_HD_1080p.ogv

Hussain MA, Bhuiyan A, D. Luu C, Theodore Smith R, H. Guymer R, Ishikawa H, et al. (2018) Classification of healthy and diseased retina using SD-OCT imaging and Random Forest algorithm. PLoS ONE 13(6): e0198281. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0198281