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Review and comparison of retinal vessel calibre and geometry software and their application to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and dementia

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Abstract

Developments in retinal imaging technologies have enabled the quantitative evaluation of the retinal vasculature. Changes in retinal calibre and/or geometry have been reported in systemic vascular diseases, including diabetes mellitus (DM), cardiovascular disease (CVD), and more recently in neurodegenerative diseases, such as dementia. Several retinal vessel analysis softwares exist, some being disease-specific, others for a broader context. In the research setting, retinal vasculature analysis using semi-automated software has identified associations between retinal vessel calibre and geometry and the presence of or risk of DM and its chronic complications, and of CVD and dementia, including in the general population. In this article, we review and compare the most widely used semi-automated retinal vessel analysis softwares and their associations with ocular imaging findings in common systemic diseases, including DM and its chronic complications, CVD, and dementia. We also provide original data comparing retinal calibre grading in people with Type 1 DM using two softwares, with good concordance.

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Acknowledgements

Some results herein were obtained with the help of the Vampire software; this is made available by the Vampire group at vampire.computing.dundee.ac.uk. The authors thank study participants and funding agencies (noted in the “Declarations” section).

Funding

This study (salary support) was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC, Australia) Centre of Research Excellence in Diabetic Retinopathy (salary support for LB, CR, HR, NQ), a National Heart Foundation Grant (salary support NQ), a NHMRC Practitioner Fellowship (salary support AJJ), a NHMRC Senior Fellowship Grant (salary support ACK), and a University of Sydney Medical School Foundation grant (to AJJ for salary support of ASJ).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Laima Brazionis, Chris D. Ryan, Hilary Richardson, Andrzej S. Januszewski & Alicia J. Jenkins

  2. NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, The University of Sydney, 92 Parramatta Rd, Camperdown, NSW, 2050, Australia

    Nicola Quinn, Chris D. Ryan, Hilary Richardson, Anthony C. Keech, Andrzej S. Januszewski & Alicia J. Jenkins

  3. Centre for Public Health, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK

    Nicola Quinn, Tunde Peto & Alicia J. Jenkins

  4. Department of Ophthalmology, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark

    Sami Dabbah, Jakob Grauslund & Malin Lundberg Rasmussen

  5. Department of Clinical Research, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark

    Dennis M. Møller, Jakob Grauslund & Malin Lundberg Rasmussen

  6. Steno Diabetes Center Odense, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark

    Jakob Grauslund

  7. Institute of Clinical Science, Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, BT12 6BA, UK

    Tunde Peto

  8. Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Alicia J. Jenkins

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  1. Laima Brazionis
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  2. Nicola Quinn
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  3. Sami Dabbah
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  5. Dennis M. Møller
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  11. Tunde Peto
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Andrzej S. Januszewski or Tunde Peto.

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Ethical approval

All procedures performed in the case study by the authors involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Regional Scientific Ethical Committee of Southern Denmark and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Written informed consent was obtained from all individual human participants included in the study. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

Conflict of interest

Authors A. Jenkins, T. Peto, L. Brazionis, and A. Januszewski are investigators on an investigator initiated trial of fenofibrate in adults with diabetic retinopathy (the FAME-1 Eye trial) which is funded by the Australian NHMRC, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) Australia and Abbott (EU). A. Jenkins, L. Brazionis, A. Januszewski, and N. Quinn have published research related to the FIELD trial of fenofibrate in diabetes retinopathy.

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Laima Brazionis, Nicola Quinn, and Sami Dabbah are equal first authors. Malin Lundberg Rasmussen, Tunde Peto, and Alicia J. Jenkins are equal senior authors.

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Brazionis, L., Quinn, N., Dabbah, S. et al. Review and comparison of retinal vessel calibre and geometry software and their application to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and dementia. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol 261, 2117–2133 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00417-023-06002-7

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