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Characteristic distribution of microaneurysms and capillary dropouts in diabetic macular edema

  • Retinal Disorders
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

To investigate the distribution pattern of microaneurysms (MAs) and capillary dropouts (CDOs) related to retinal thickness in patients with diabetic macular edema (DME).

Methods

We designed a cross-sectional observational study in which we manually merged fluorescein angiography and optical coherence tomography (OCT) map and located MAs and CDOs areas. The density of MAs, the width and the length of circumference of CDOs, and the number of MAs adjacent to CDOs were compared between highly thickened (white area (WA) in OCT map) and border areas (red area (RA)).

Results

We examined 115 eyes of 115 patients with DME. The density of MAs in RA (1.086 ± 0.616) was significantly higher than that in WA (0.8601 ± 1.086) (p = 0.002). The MA rates adjacent to CDOs in WA and RA were 79.1% and 80.7%, respectively. In the RA, the size of CDO adjacent to MAs was smaller (p = 0.013), but its circumference was longer (p = 0.018), and the number of MAs adjacent to CDOs was larger than those in WA (p = 0.002). The total length of circumference of CDOs was significantly correlated with the number of MAs adjacent to CDOs in WA (p = 0.011, R2 = 0.68) and RA (p = 0.008, R2 = 0.81).

Conclusion

Smaller but more CDOs with longer circumference adjacent to MAs contribute to the higher density of MAs in the surrounding areas of DME.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

Publication of this article was supported in part by grants-in-aid for scientific research (J160000936) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ophthalmology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui, Eiheiji-cho, Yoshida-gun, Fukui-ken, 910-1193, Japan

    Yoshihiro Takamura, Yutaka Yamada, Masakazu Morioka, Makoto Gozawa, Takehiro Matsumura & Masaru Inatani

  2. Department of Ophthalmology, Laboratory of Ocular Cell Biology and Visual Science, Faculty of Medicine and Graduate School of Medicine, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan

    Kosuke Noda & Yuki Hashimoto

Authors
  1. Yoshihiro Takamura
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  2. Yutaka Yamada
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  3. Kosuke Noda
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  4. Masakazu Morioka
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  5. Yuki Hashimoto
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  6. Makoto Gozawa
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  7. Takehiro Matsumura
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  8. Masaru Inatani
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Contributions

Y. Takamura contributed with conception or design of the work, data collection, data analysis, drafting the article, and critical revision of the article. K. Noda, M. Morioka, Y. Hashimoto, and M. Gozawa participated in data collection and analysis. Y. Yamada participated in data analysis. M. Inatani contributed with conception and design of the work.

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Correspondence to Yoshihiro Takamura.

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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 or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Takamura, Y., Yamada, Y., Noda, K. et al. Characteristic distribution of microaneurysms and capillary dropouts in diabetic macular edema. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol 258, 1625–1630 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00417-020-04722-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00417-020-04722-8

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