In Brief | Blood flow in the optic nerve head in patients with primary aldosteronism
Type of article: In Brief
MedED Catalogue Reference: MOIB005
Keywords: Glaucoma, intraocular pressure, retinal diseases, ophthalmology
Sources: PLoS One
Original Published In PLoS One: 23 April 2023
Recent studies have investigated the contribution of the hormone aldosterone to the development of ocular diseases like diabetic retinopathy, retinal vein occlusion, and central serous chorioretinopathy. The dramatic increase in serum aldosterone found in patients with primary aldosteronism (PA) - the most common form of secondary hypertension - places these patients at increased risk for vision loss.
The researchers of this 2023 paper wanted to compare blood flow in the optic nerve head (ONH) of patients with primary aldosteronism to those without PA.
- The single-centre, retrospective, cross-section study evaluated twenty-nine eyes from 17 PA patients and 61 eyes from 61 patients without PA.
- Laser speckle flowgraphy (LSFG) was used to evaluate the ONH tissue mean blur rate (MT)
- Mixed-effects models were used to compare the MT between PA patients and normal subjects and to analyse the risk factors affecting the MT. Adjustments were made for mean arterial pressure, disc area, and β-peripapillary atrophy (β-PPA) area.
The researchers found that there was a significantly lower MT in PA patients (10.8 ± 0.4) compared to that found in the non-PA patients (12.3 ± 0.3) (P = 0.004), even after adjusting for potentially confounding factors.
The study had several limitations; most notably, it did not allow for the possible presence of ant-hypertensive agents such as calcium channel blockers that may have been present in the patients before commencing the study. The relatively small sample was also noted as a limitation. The initial research's findings warrant further investigation on a large scale to draw definitive conclusions.
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