Age-related changes of the retinal microvasculature

Blood vessels of the retina provide an easily-accessible, representative window into the condition of microvasculature. We investigated how retinal vessel structure captured in fundus photographs changes with age, and how this may reflect features related to patient health, including blood pressure....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one Vol. 14; no. 5; p. e0215916
Main Authors: Orlov, Nikita V., Coletta, Cristopher, van Asten, Freekje, Qian, Yong, Ding, Jun, AlGhatrif, Majd, Lakatta, Edward, Chew, Emily, Wong, Wai, Swaroop, Anand, Fiorillo, Edoardo, Delitala, Alessandro, Marongiu, Michele, Goldberg, Ilya G., Schlessinger, David
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States Public Library of Science 02.05.2019
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects:
Adult
Age
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Aging
Aging - physiology
Algorithms
Artificial intelligence
Atherosclerosis
Bifurcations
Biology and Life Sciences
Blood Pressure
Blood vessels
Cardiovascular disease
Cardiovascular diseases
Care and treatment
Cohort Studies
Correlation
Diabetic retinopathy
Echocardiography
Epidemiology
Female
Fractals
Fundus Oculi
Genomics
Health
Humans
Image analysis
Image processing
Laboratories
Macular degeneration
Male
Medical personnel
Medicine and Health Sciences
Microvasculature
Microvessels - anatomy & histology
Microvessels - physiology
Middle Aged
Neurobiology
Neurodegeneration
Neurosciences
Parameterization
Patient outcomes
Pattern recognition
Photography
Physical Sciences
Population studies
Research and Analysis Methods
Retina
Retinal Vessels - anatomy & histology
Retinal Vessels - physiology
Self-similarity
Studies
Tortuosity
Young Adult
Italy
United States > US
Maryland
Baltimore Maryland
ISSN:1932-6203, 1932-6203
Online Access:Get full text
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Description
Summary:Blood vessels of the retina provide an easily-accessible, representative window into the condition of microvasculature. We investigated how retinal vessel structure captured in fundus photographs changes with age, and how this may reflect features related to patient health, including blood pressure. We used two approaches. In the first approach, we segmented the retinal vasculature from fundus photographs and then we correlated 25 parameterized aspects ("traits")-comprising 15 measures of tortuosity, 7 fractal ranges of self-similarity, and 3 measures of junction numbers-with participant age and blood pressure. In the second approach, we examined entire fundus photographs with a set of algorithmic CHARM features. We studied 2,280 Sardinians, ages 20-28, and an U.S. based population from the AREDS study in 1,178 participants, ages 59-84. Three traits (relating to tortuosity, vessel bifurcation number, and vessel endpoint number) showed significant changes with age in both cohorts, and one additional trait (relating to fractal number) showed a correlation in the Sardinian cohort only. When using second approach, we found significant correlations of particular CHARM features with age and blood pressure, which were stronger than those detected when using parameterized traits, reflecting a greater signal from the entire photographs than was captured in the segmented microvasculature. These findings demonstrate that automated quantitative image analysis of fundus images can reveal general measures of patient health status.
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Current address: Mindshare Medical, Inc., Seattle, Washington, United States of America
Competing Interests: I have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: Ilya G. Goldberg is employed by Mindshare Medical, Inc. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.
Current address: Department of Ophthalmology, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0215916