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OCT Diagnostics of Optic Nerve Edema in Space Flight: Analyses of the Retina, Optic Disc, and Neuroretinal Circle Thicknesses

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Abstract

The state of 24 eyes was assessed in 12 Russian cosmonauts who participated in long-term space flights aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in the period from 2016 to 2021. Heidelberg retina angiograph (HRA) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) images were analyzed using the Display function included in software of a Spectralis OCT device. The thicknesses of the optic nerve head and retina were determined through hourly meridians, and optic disc edema was thus accurately diagnosed and graded using the Frisen scale. A percent ratio of the maximum thickness of the optic nerve disc within its boundaries to the minimum thickness of the retina outside the optic nerve disc was measured to determine the prominence digital value in each temporal hourly meridian within the temporal sector of 95°. The presence of prominence in the extreme temporal meridians or its absence was regarded as a physiologically healthy state of the optic disc, corresponding to Frisen grade 0. This grade was established in 13 eyes (54.2%). Grade I (7 eyes, 29.2%) was diagnosed by the absence of prominence in the horizontal temporal meridian. An increase in prominence in the temporal horizontal meridian by more than 10% defined grade II. Subclinical stage II (prominence increased, but by less than 10%) was diagnosed in two eyes of two cosmonauts (8.3%). Clinical papilledema of grade II–III stages was diagnosed in two eyes (8.3%) of the same cosmonaut, the maximum prominence in the horizontal meridian being 70.1% in the right eye and 40.1% in the left eye. The study showed that an increase in prominence in the temporal horizontal meridian by up to 70% in edema grade III leads to neurodegeneration of optic nerve fibers in a space flight. Edema grade II–III was associated with an increase in the minimum thickness of the neuroretinal rim compared with all other observations. The state of the optic disc was impossible to differentiate by this parameter at subclinical grades 0–II.

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Funding

This work was supported by the program “Works on Biomedical Support of Flight Testing of the ISS (ISS-MBU).”

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Biomedical Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    I. A. Makarov, I. V. Alferova, V. V. Bogomolov, Yu. I. Voronkov & D. A. Anikeev

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  1. I. A. Makarov
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  2. I. V. Alferova
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  3. V. V. Bogomolov
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  4. Yu. I. Voronkov
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  5. D. A. Anikeev
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Correspondence to I. A. Makarov.

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Statement of compliance with standards of research involving humans as subjects. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments and were approved by the local Ethics Committee at the Institute of Biomedical Problems (Moscow). All individual participants involved in the study gave their informed consent for participation after being informed about the potential risks and benefits and the study nature.

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Translated by T. Tkaсheva

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Makarov, I.A., Alferova, I.V., Bogomolov, V.V. et al. OCT Diagnostics of Optic Nerve Edema in Space Flight: Analyses of the Retina, Optic Disc, and Neuroretinal Circle Thicknesses. Hum Physiol 48, 748–758 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0362119722700086

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S0362119722700086

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