Applications of visual evoked potentials and Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography in Parkinson’s disease: a controlled study

Abstract

Purpose: The goal of this cross-sectional observational study was to quantify the pattern-shift visual evoked potentials (VEP) and the thickness as well as the volume of retinal layers using optical coherence tomography (OCT) across a cohort of Parkinson's disease (PD) patients and age-matched controls. Methods: Forty-three PD patients and 38 controls were enrolled. All participants underwent a detailed neurological and ophthalmologic evaluation. Idiopathic PD cases were included. Cases with glaucoma or increased intra-ocular pressure were excluded. Patients were assessed by VEP and high-resolution Fourier-domain OCT, which quantified the inner and outer thicknesses of the retinal layers. VEP latencies and the thicknesses of the retinal layers were the main outcome measures. Results: The mean age, with standard deviation (SD), of the PD patients and controls were 63.1 (7.5) and 62.4 (7.2) years, respectively. The patients were predominantly in the initial Hoehn-Yahr (HY) disease stages (34.8% in stage 1 or 1.5, and 55.8 % in stage 2). The VEP latencies and the thicknesses as well as the volumes of the retinal inner and outer layers of the groups were similar. A negative correlation between the retinal thickness and the age was noted in both groups. The thickness of the retinal nerve fibre layer (RNFL) was 102.7 μm in PD patients vs. 104.2 μm in controls. Conclusions:The thicknesses of retinal layers, VEP, and RNFL of PD patients were similar to those of the controls. Despite the use of a representative cohort of PD patients and high-resolution OCT in this study, further studies are required to establish the validity of using OCT and VEP measurements as the anatomic and functional biomarkers for the evaluation of retinal and visual pathways in PD patients.

Optical coherence tomography measurements as potential imaging biomarkers for Parkinson's disease: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…The 36 studies were all published between 2011 and 2020. The flow diagram of the search procedure is shown in Figure 1 and the characteristics of the included studies are described in Table 1 [11,19–53]. Patients with PD had a mean age of 64.8 (53.4–74.61) years and a mean duration of 6.7 (0.675–18.44) years.…”

“…Regarding the OCT models, 15 studies used the Spectralis OCT (Heidelberg Engineering, Heidelberg, Germany) [19,20,22,24,26–28,34,36,44–46,50,52,53], 13 studies used the Cirrus OCT (Carl Zeiss Meditec, Dublin, CA, USA) [11,29–31,33,35,38,39,41,42,48,49,51] and eight studies used other OCT models [21,23,25,32,37,40,43,47]. In the included studies for the meta‐analysis, 32 studies measured pRNFL thickness [11,19–22,24,26–31,33,35–53], 14 measured macular thickness [11,21,24,27,29,32–34,39,43,45,46,48,50], nine measured macular volume [11,20,21,24,29,33,38,41,48] and 11 measured mGCC thickness [11,19,23,32,35,36,39,41,42,47,51]. Details of the risk of bias assessment are provided in Appendix S1, Table S2.…”

Meta-Analysis of Visual Evoked Potential and Parkinson’s Disease

“…A total of 214 articles were initially identified, and 20 case-control studies which met our inclusion criteria were included in the final meta-analysis ( Figure 1 ; Table 1 ) [ 2 , 3 , 7 – 10 , 15 – 28 ]. Seven out of the 20 studies had the NOS score equal to or more than 6, and the mean score was 6.3.…”

Parkinson’s Disease: Available Clinical and Promising Omics Tests for Diagnostics, Disease Risk Assessment, and Pharmacotherapy Personalization

“…The method can be used to diagnose and clarify the nature of visual dysfunction and color perception disorders, and at the earliest stages of the disease. The parameters of color VEP are related to age characteristics, the form of the disease, and the therapy [66,67].…”