Evaluating Retinal Hemodynamics Following Laser Photocoagulation Treatment for Retinopathy of Prematurity

Document Type

Abstract

Publication Date

2025

Publication Title

Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science

Volume

66

Issue

8

Pages

472

Conference Name

2025 ARVO Annual Meeting, May 4-8, 2025, Salt Lake City, Utah

Abstract

Purpose: Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is characterized by abnormal development of the retinal vessels in premature neonates. Laser photocoagulation is a standard intervention for treating ROP by ablating the avascular retina. Emerging evidence suggests that laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) based blood flow assessment offers a noninvasive evaluation of treatment response following laser photocoagulation. This study investigates LSCI as a clinical tool to compare retinal blood flow (RBF) patterns in preterm neonates before and after ROP treatment with laser photocoagulation.

Methods: A cohort of 23 preterm neonates undergoing photocoagulation treatment for ROP was recruited. LSCI was performed pre-therapy during standard ROP screenings and post-therapy. Images focused on the optic disc were acquired in six-second sequences at 82 frames per second using the investigational XyCAM CRE system (Vasoptic Medical, Inc., Columbia, MD). Systolic, diastolic, and mean blood flow velocity indices (BFVi) in the optic disc were then calculated for each image sequence and statistical analysis (linear regression analysis and two-sample t-test) was used to compare LSCI-based BFVi metrics pre- and post-therapy (p< 0.05).

Results: 38 eyes of 23 preterm neonates were imaged. We observed a significant average reduction of 24% in mean BFVi post-photocoagulation (5.8 ± 2.0 to 4.4 ± 1.0 a.u., p< 0.02). Similar trends were observed for both systolic and diastolic BFVi; post-therapy systolic BFVi (5.0 +/- 1.0 a.u.) and diastolic BFVi (3.8 +/- 1.1 a.u.) demonstrated a 23.5% (p= 0.01) and 24.6% (p=0.04) decrease, respectively, compared to the systolic BFVi (6.6 +/- 2.1 a.u.) and diastolic BFVi (5.0 +/- 2.0 a.u.) of our pre-therapy cohort.

Conclusions: We identified significantly decreased retinal blood flow velocities following laser photocoagulation treatment for ROP suggesting in a preliminary manner a possible role for LSCI in the clinical evaluation of ROP treatment response. Additional studies with larger sample sizes are needed to validate these early findings.

Original Publication Citation

Kilby, C., Wu, J.-Y., Mansoor, S., Forbes, H. E., Kapoor, R., Williams, K., Rege, A., Sinha, A., & Alexander, J. L. (2025). Evaluating retinal hemodynamics following laser photocoagulation treatment for retinopathy of prematurity. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, 66(8), 472. https://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2805015

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