Retinal microvascular abnormalities in patients after COVID-19 depending on disease severity

• Published in: British journal of ophthalmology Vol. 106; no. 4; p. 559
• Main Authors: Zapata, Miguel Ángel, Banderas García, Sandra, Sánchez-Moltalvá, Adrián, Falcó, Anna, Otero-Romero, Susana, Arcos, Gabriel, Velazquez-Villoria, Daniel, García-Arumí, Jose
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England 01-04-2022
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Case-Control Studies; COVID-19; Humans; Middle Aged; Pandemics; SARS-CoV-2; Severity of Illness Index; Young Adult; infection; retina; imaging; macula
• ISSN: 1468-2079
• DOI: 10.1136/bjophthalmol-2020-317953

Global pandemic SARS-CoV-2 causes a prothrombotic state without fully elucidated effects. This study aims to analyse and quantify the possible retinal microvascular abnormalities.
Case-control study. Patients between 18 and 55 years old with PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection within the last 3 months were included.
group 1-mild disease (asymptomatic/paucisymptomatic); group 2-moderate disease (required hospital admission with no acute respiratory distress) and group 3-severe disease (subjects who developed an acute respiratory distress were admitted in the intensive care unit and presented interleukin 6 values above 40 pg/mL). Age-matched volunteers with negative serology tests were enrolled to control group. A colour photograph, an optical coherence tomography (OCT) and an angiography using OCT centred on the fovea were performed.
Control group included 27 subjects: group 1 included 24 patients, group 2 consisted of 24 patients and 21 participants were recruited for group 3. There were no funduscopic lesions, neither in the colour images nor in the structural OCT. Fovea-centred vascular density (VD) was reduced in group 2 and group 3 compared with group 1 and control group (control group vs group 2; 16.92 vs 13.37; p=0.009) (control group vs group 3; 16.92 vs .13.63; p=0.026) (group 1 vs group 2; 17.16 vs 13.37; p=0.006) (group 1 vs group 3; 17.16 vs 13.63 p=0.017).
Patients with moderate and severe SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia had decreased central retinal VD as compared with that of asymptomatic/paucisymptomatic cases or control subjects.