Adaptive optics assisted visualization of thickened retinal arterial wall in a patient with controlled malignant hypertension

PURPOSE: We aimed to visualize the retinal arterial wall thickness, assisted by noninvasive adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscopy (AO-SLO). METHODS: The arterial wall thickness was measured and compared between one normal subject and one patient suffering from malignant hypertensive retinopathy. RESULTS: Increased arterial wall thickness was revealed with a newly developed AO-SLO system, in a retinal artery of 1-papilla diameter temporal inferior to the optic disc. The average wall thickness, with hypertension, was 18.7 μm, and the wall-to-lumen ratio was 0.44, both bigger than normal. CONCLUSION: AO-SLO enabled us to evaluate the retinal wall thickness in the hypertensive patient. The arterial walls were thickened compared with normal. AO-SLO may facilitate future noninvasive study of arterial walls in human medicine.