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The role of optical coherence tomography in Alzheimer’s disease

BACKGROUND: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia and its incidence is increasing worldwide along with population aging. Previous clinical and histologic studies suggest that the neurodegenerative process, which affects the brain, may also affect the retina of AD patients. MA...

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Autores principales: Cunha, Leonardo Provetti, Almeida, Ana Laura Maciel, Costa-Cunha, Luciana Virgínia Ferreira, Costa, Carolina Ferreira, Monteiro, Mário L. R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5088456/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27847642
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40942-016-0049-4
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author Cunha, Leonardo Provetti
Almeida, Ana Laura Maciel
Costa-Cunha, Luciana Virgínia Ferreira
Costa, Carolina Ferreira
Monteiro, Mário L. R.
author_facet Cunha, Leonardo Provetti
Almeida, Ana Laura Maciel
Costa-Cunha, Luciana Virgínia Ferreira
Costa, Carolina Ferreira
Monteiro, Mário L. R.
author_sort Cunha, Leonardo Provetti
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia and its incidence is increasing worldwide along with population aging. Previous clinical and histologic studies suggest that the neurodegenerative process, which affects the brain, may also affect the retina of AD patients. MAIN BODY: Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive technology that acquires cross-sectional images of retinal structures allowing neural fundus integrity assessment. Several previous studies demonstrated that both peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer and macular thickness measurements assessed by OCT were able to detect neuronal loss in AD. Moreover, recent advances in OCT technology, have allowed substantial enhancement in ultrastructural evaluation of the macula, enabling the assessment not only of full-thickness retinal measurements but also of inner retinal layers, which seems to be a promising approach, mainly regarding the assessment of retinal ganglion cell layer impairment in AD patients. Furthermore, retinal neuronal loss seems to correlate with cognitive impairment in AD, reinforcing the promising role of OCT in the clinical evaluation of these patients. CONCLUSION: The purpose of this article is to review the main findings on OCT in AD patients, to discuss the role of this important diagnostic tool in these patients and how OCT technology may be useful in understanding morphological retinal changes in AD.
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spelling pubmed-50884562016-11-15 The role of optical coherence tomography in Alzheimer’s disease Cunha, Leonardo Provetti Almeida, Ana Laura Maciel Costa-Cunha, Luciana Virgínia Ferreira Costa, Carolina Ferreira Monteiro, Mário L. R. Int J Retina Vitreous Review BACKGROUND: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia and its incidence is increasing worldwide along with population aging. Previous clinical and histologic studies suggest that the neurodegenerative process, which affects the brain, may also affect the retina of AD patients. MAIN BODY: Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive technology that acquires cross-sectional images of retinal structures allowing neural fundus integrity assessment. Several previous studies demonstrated that both peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer and macular thickness measurements assessed by OCT were able to detect neuronal loss in AD. Moreover, recent advances in OCT technology, have allowed substantial enhancement in ultrastructural evaluation of the macula, enabling the assessment not only of full-thickness retinal measurements but also of inner retinal layers, which seems to be a promising approach, mainly regarding the assessment of retinal ganglion cell layer impairment in AD patients. Furthermore, retinal neuronal loss seems to correlate with cognitive impairment in AD, reinforcing the promising role of OCT in the clinical evaluation of these patients. CONCLUSION: The purpose of this article is to review the main findings on OCT in AD patients, to discuss the role of this important diagnostic tool in these patients and how OCT technology may be useful in understanding morphological retinal changes in AD. BioMed Central 2016-10-17 /pmc/articles/PMC5088456/ /pubmed/27847642 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40942-016-0049-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Review
Cunha, Leonardo Provetti
Almeida, Ana Laura Maciel
Costa-Cunha, Luciana Virgínia Ferreira
Costa, Carolina Ferreira
Monteiro, Mário L. R.
The role of optical coherence tomography in Alzheimer’s disease
title The role of optical coherence tomography in Alzheimer’s disease
title_full The role of optical coherence tomography in Alzheimer’s disease
title_fullStr The role of optical coherence tomography in Alzheimer’s disease
title_full_unstemmed The role of optical coherence tomography in Alzheimer’s disease
title_short The role of optical coherence tomography in Alzheimer’s disease
title_sort role of optical coherence tomography in alzheimer’s disease
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5088456/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27847642
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40942-016-0049-4
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