Are Retinal Vessels Calibers Influenced by Blood Pressure Measured at the Time of Retinography Acquisition?

BACKGROUND: Retinal arterial narrowing is associated with higher office blood pressure (BP) and ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, and increased incidence of cardiovascular disease, but it is still unknown if the vessel caliber is associated with BP measured at the time of retinography acquisition. METHODS: Retinal arteriolar and venular calibers were measured by the microdensitometric method in 448 patients with hypertension. Participants underwent 24-hours ambulatory blood pressure (24-h ABP) monitoring simultaneously with the retinography acquisition. Association between arteriolar and venular calibers with increase of 10 mmHg in the mean 24-hours, daily, and nightly BP, and with BP measured at the time of retinography, was evaluated by ANOVA and multivariate analyses. RESULTS: Mean 24-hours, daytime and nighttime systolic and diastolic BP were inversely associated with the arteriolar caliber, but not with the venular caliber. Arteriolar caliber decreased -0.8 (95% CI -1.4 to -0.2) μm per 10-mmHg increase in 24-hours mean systolic BP, adjusted for age, gender, fellow vessel, and duration of hypertension (P = 0.01). The corresponding decreasing in arteriolar caliber by 10 mmHg of increasing in mean diastolic BP was -1.1 μm (-2.0 to -0.2, P = 0.02). The decrease of arteriolar caliber by the same increasing of BP measured at the time of retinography was lower and not statistically significant, particularly for mean diastolic BP and outer arterioles calibers: -1.0 (-1.8 to -0.2) μm in the daytime BP average versus -0.3 (-0.9 to 0.3) at the moment of retinography acquisition. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that the caliber of arteriolar retinal vessels in patients with uncontrolled hypertension are not significantly influenced by blood pressure measured at the time of retinography acquisition.