Proliferative diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema are two factors that increase macrophage-like cell density characterized by en face optical coherence tomography

BACKGROUND: Macrophage-like cells (MLCs) located at the ILM were observed in live human retinas using adaptive optics optical coherence tomography (OCT) as well as clinically-used OCT. The study aimed to quantitatively analyzing MLCs at the vitreoretinal interface (VRI) in diabetic retinopathy (DR) using en face OCT and swept-source optical coherence tomography angiography (SS-OCTA). METHODS: 190 DR eyes were included in the study, with 70 proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) eyes and 120 non- proliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) eyes. Sixty-three eyes from normal subjects were included as controls. MLCs were visualized in a 5 μm en face OCT slab above the VRI centered on the fovea. Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis H test were used to compare the OCTA parameters and the MLC parameters among groups. We evaluated the MLC density among groups on binarized images after image processing. We also investigated the relationship between MLC density and other OCT parameters including retina thickness and vessel density (VD). RESULTS: The MLC density significantly increased in PDR eyes (PDR vs. NPDR, 8.97 (8.40) cells/mm(2) vs.6.14 (8.78) cells/mm(2), P = 0.013; PDR vs. normal, 8.97 (8.40) cells/mm(2)vs. 6.48 (6.71) cells/mm(2), P = 0.027) and diabetic macular edema (DME) eyes (DME vs. without DME, 8.94 (8.26) vs.6.09 (9.00), P = 0.005). After adjusting for age and gender, MLC density in NPDR eyes negatively correlated to VD of deep capillary plexus (DCP) (P = 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: SS-OCTA is a non-invasive and simple method for the characterization of MLCs at the VRI. PDR and DME are two factors that increase MLC density. MLC density also correlated with VD. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12886-023-02794-8.