Study of choroidal vasculature in open angle glaucoma patients

Purpose: To investigate the vessel density (VD) of the choriocapillary (CC) plexus in patients affected by preperimetric glaucoma (PPG), advanced glaucoma (AG) and in a healthy control group using Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography (OCTA) in order to clarify the pathogenetic mechanisms of this disease. Methods: In this prospective observational study, 19 eyes from 19 patients affected by preperimetric glaucoma (PPG) and 18 eyes from 18 patients affected by advanced glaucoma were studied from January 2022 to May 2022 at the University of Naples "Federico II". These patients had been compared with 20 eyes of 20 healthy subjects that represented the control group. All subjects underwent EDI-OCT to assess the subfoveal choroidal thickness (SFCT). OCTA was used to evaluate the vessel density (VD) of the CC in whole image in the studies groups. Results: The PPG and AG groups showed a statistically significant reduction in CC vessel density parameters with respect to controls (p < 0.001). Regarding EDI OCT results AG patients exhibited a statistically significant increase in the SFCT compared to healthy controls (p < 0.001). Whereas,no statistically significant difference was between the PPG groups and to healthy controls (p 0.851). Conclusions: CC vessel density could represent a helpful and sensible biomarker to identify early choroidal microvascular changes in PPG and MCI in order to better understand the vascular pathophysiological mechanisms involved in glaucoma diseases.