Visualizing Structure and Vascular Interactions: Macular Nonperfusion in Three Capillary Plexuses.

Background And Objective: To assess the relationship between retinal vascular and structural changes in the superficial, middle, and deep capillary plexuses (SCP, MCP, DCP) using optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) and en face OCT.

Patients And Methods: Patients with diabetic retinopathy were imaged using the Cirrus HD-OCT with AngioPlex. Using manual segmentation of the retinal layers, the authors compared OCTA to en face OCT images to examine corresponding patterns in each of the three capillary plexuses.

Results: Areas of decreased perfusion and capillary dropout on OCTA were found to be associated with three corresponding lesions on en face OCT: hyporeflectivity, cystic edema, and hard exudates. Vascular changes in individual capillary plexuses corresponded with structural changes in their respective perfused retinal layers.

Conclusions: Using manual segmentation on OCTA, the authors provide a framework to visualize the relationship between vascular pathology on OCTA and structural changes on en face OCT within specific capillary plexuses. [Ophthalmic Surg Lasers Imaging Retina. 2018;49:e182-e190.].