Altered White Matter Integrity in Patients with Retinal Vein Occlusion: A Diffusion Tensor Imaging and Tract-Based Spatial Statistics Study.

Background: To investigate microstructural alterations of white matter in retinal vein occlusion (RVO) patients by tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). . DTI was performed on 14 RVO patients and 14 normal controls (HCs). We measured and recorded fractional anisotropy (FA) and radial diffusivity (RD) of white matter fibers and classified them through the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and correlation analysis, respectively.

Results: The mean FA value of white matter in RVO patients is lower than the HCs, and the mean RD value in RVO patients increased, especially in the bilateral posterior thalamic, bilateral sagittal stratum, body of corpus callosum, cingulum, and fornix. The ROC curve of different brain regions showed high accuracy. Moreover, the mean FA and RD values were significantly correlated with visual and psychological disorders.

Conclusion: TBSS could be regarded as an important method to reveal the alterations of white matter in RVO patients, indicating the underlying neurological mechanism of the RVO.