Investigating Tissue Optical Properties and Texture Descriptors of the Retina in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis

Abstract

PurposeTo assess the differences in texture descriptors and optical properties of retinal tissue layers in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and to evaluate their usefulness in the detection of neurodegenerative changes using optical coherence tomography (OCT) image segmentation.Patients and Methods38 patients with MS were examined using Stratus OCT. The raw macular OCT data were exported and processed using OCTRIMA software. The enrolled eyes were divided into two groups, based on the presence of optic neuritis (ON) in the history (MSON+ group, n = 36 and MSON- group, n = 31). Data of 29 eyes of 24 healthy subjects (H) were used as controls. A total of seven intraretinal layers were segmented and thickness as well as optical parameters such as contrast, fractal dimension, layer index and total reflectance were measured. Mixed-model ANOVA analysis was used for statistical comparisons.ResultsSignificant thinning of the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL), ganglion cell/inner plexiform layer complex (GCL+IPL) and ganglion cell complex (GCC, RNFL+GCL+IPL) was observed between study groups in all comparisons. Significant difference was found in contrast in the RNFL, GCL+IPL, GCC, inner nuclear layer (INL) and outer plexiform layer when comparing MSON+ to the other groups. Higher fractal dimension values were observed in GCL+IPL and INL layers when comparing H vs. MSON+ groups. A significant difference was found in layer index in the RNFL, GCL+IPL and GCC layers in all comparisons. A significant difference was observed in total reflectance in the RNFL, GCL+IPL and GCC layers between the three examination groups.ConclusionTexture and optical properties of the retinal tissue undergo pronounced changes in MS even without optic neuritis. Our results may help to further improve the diagnostic efficacy of OCT in MS and neurodegeneration.

Retinal microvascular network alterations: potential biomarkers of cerebrovascular and neural diseases

“…On the other hand, retinal periphlebitis and stiffness of central retinal arteries have been reported in MS (64,94). Our group recently reported significant differences in the nerve fiber layer and the ganglion cell/plexiform layer compound in MS patients compared with healthy subjects along with changes in the retinas affected by optic neuritis compared with those unaffected (128). The perceived dissimilarities in optical properties in our study can be related both to inflammatory or microvascular alterations of the inner retina.…”

Involvement of Autophagic Pathway in the Progression of Retinal Degeneration in a Mouse Model of Diabetes

“…Here, we observe an increased expression of autophagic markers and in particular the staining of LC3A increases mainly in the OPL where an impairment of both pre- and post-synaptic proteins is apparent. Down-regulation of photoreceptor presynaptic proteins has been observed in other rodent models of diabetes (Park et al, 2003 ; Ozawa et al, 2011 ; Hombrebueno et al, 2014 ) as well as in patients with mild DR (Varga et al, 2015 ). Multiple evidence from cultured retinal explants suggests that high glucose exposure is sufficient to cause altered expression of key synaptic components such as vesicular GABA transporter (Baptista et al, 2015 ), purinergic receptors (Vindeirinho et al, 2013 ) and extracellular ATP levels (Costa et al, 2009 ), thus making the synaptic layers of the retina particularly prone to alterations occurring in early phases of DR. We therefore propose that the synaptic contacts in the outer retina undergo increased autophagy in response to diabetes.…”

[Retracted] Retinal OCT Texture Analysis for Differentiating Healthy Controls from Multiple Sclerosis (MS) with/without Optic Neuritis

“…In recent years, in the field of retinal OCT image processing, much attention has been paid to extracting and using texture features of layers while these types of features have not yet been used widely for MS diagnosis and there are few works addressing this issue. As an example, Varga et al in 2015 had a study investigating the differences in texture descriptors and optical properties of retinal tissue layers in patients with MS and evaluated their usefulness in the detection of neurodegenerative changes using OCT image segmentation [10]. The term texture in image processing and machine vision refers to the amount, type, and distribution of pixel brightness throughout the image along with the texture of the image [11].…”