Evaluation of Microvascular Structure Changes after Conbercept Treatment on Macular Edema Secondary to Retinal Vein Occlusion

Aims. To confirm the therapeutic efficacy of conbercept for the treatment of macular edema (ME) secondary to retinal vein occlusion (RVO) by using optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) and to find out the differences in therapeutic efficacy between ischemic and nonischemic retinal vein occlusion (iRVO or non-iRVO) after conbercept treatment. Methods. In this prospective, randomized, and comparative study, 60 unilateral eyes suffered from RVO combined with macular edema were included and fellow eye as controls. After an initial intravitreal injection of conbercept (IVIC), a pro re nata (PRN) strategy was adopted, and the follow-up time was 6 months. The foveal avascular zone (FAZ), vascular density of superficial capillary plexus (SCP), and vascular density of deep retinal capillary plexus (DCP), nonperfused areas (NPAs) were evaluated with OCTA on baseline and after treatment. Results. The mean intravitreal injection number was 2.9±0.89 times during six months in iRVO patients and 2.1±0.86 times in non-iRVO patients, with statistically significant difference (p<0.05). On baseline, central macular thickness (CMT) and FAZ were significantly thickened and enlarged compared to those of healthy fellow eyes; the vascular density of SCP and DCP were significantly decreased, and the differences were statistically significant (p<0.05). Compared to baseline, after treatment, the best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) was improved in either iRVO or non-iRVO (−0.601±0.387, −0.241±0.341 logMAR, p<0.05). In iRVO, the improvement was more substantial than that of the non-iRVO group. FAZ in the non-iRVO group had significantly decreased compared to that in iRVO group (−0.044±0.040 versus 0.014±0.043 mm2, p<0.05). CMT, the vascular density of SCP, and DCP had no significant difference. Conclusions. The changes of microvascular structure can be quantitatively evaluated by using OCTA for the patients with RVO. Conbercept had a significant effect on treatment of RVO with macular edema. A more profound effect was achieved in the iRVO group on visual improvement and FAZ reduction in the non-iRVO group after conbercept treatment

Correlation analysis between central corneal thickness and intraocular pressure in juveniles in Northern China: the Jinan city eye study.

PURPOSE: To determine the distributions and relation of central corneal thickness (CCT) and intraocular pressure (IOP) by NT-530P in Chinese juveniles, and the effect of gender, age, height, weight and refractive errors on the CTT and IOP. METHODS: CCT and IOP of 982 eyes in 514 juveniles aged from 7 to 18 years were measured with NT-530P. Multi-linear regression and ANOVA analysis were used to analyze the relation of CCT and IOP, and the effect of gender, age, height, weight, refractive condition on CCT and IOP respectively. RESULTS: The mean CCT and IOP were 554.19±35.46 µm and 15.31±2.57 mmHg. There were significant correlations between the CCT and IOP values. Linear regression analysis revealed a positive correlation between CCT and IOP (r = 0.44, P<0.05). Linear regression equation: IOP = -2.35+0.032CCT, which means the IOP will increase 0.32 mm Hg for every 10-µm increase in CCT. The mean of Corrected IOP (CIOP) was 15.32±2.38 mmHg and had no relation with CCT. There was a negative correlation between refraction degree and CCT (P<0.05), but no correlation between refraction degree and IOP. Multi-linear regression model revealed that the height, weight, age and gender have no effect on the distribution of CCT and IOP respectively. CONCLUSIONS: There is a 0.32 mmHg increase in IOP for every 10-µm increase in CCT. The height, weight, age and gender has no effect on the distribution of CCT and IOP. CCT will become thinner with myopia diopters increases in juveniles. The measurement of CCT is helpful in evaluating the actual IOP correctly

Measuring Spectral Inconsistency of Multispectral Images for Detection and Segmentation of Retinal Degenerative Changes

Abstract Multispectral imaging (MSI) creates a series of en-face fundus spectral sections by leveraging an extensive range of discrete monochromatic light sources and allows for an examination of the retina’s early morphologic changes that are not generally visible with traditional fundus imaging modalities. An Ophthalmologist’s interpretation of MSI images is commonly conducted by qualitatively analyzing the spectral consistency between degenerated areas and normal ones, which characterizes the image variation across different spectra. Unfortunately, an ophthalmologist’s interpretation is practically difficult considering the fact that human perception is limited to the RGB color space, while an MSI sequence contains typically more than ten spectra. In this paper, we propose a method for measuring the spectral inconsistency of MSI images without supervision, which yields quantitative information indicating the pathological property of the tissue. Specifically, we define mathematically the spectral consistency as an existence of a pixel-specific latent feature vector and a spectrum-specific projection matrix, which can be used to reconstruct the representative features of pixels. The spectral inconsistency is then measured using the number of latent feature vectors required to reconstruct the representative features in practice. Experimental results from 54 MSI sequences show that our spectral inconsistency measurement is potentially invaluable for MSI-based ocular disease diagnosis

Prevalence and Risk Factors for Pterygium in Rural Older Adults in Shandong Province of China: A Cross-Sectional Study

To investigate the prevalence and risk factors for pterygium in rural older adults in Shandong Province, eastern China, a population-based, cross-sectional study was performed from April to July 2008. By means of cluster random sampling methods, a total of 19,583 people aged 50 years or above were randomly selected from four rural counties. Out of 19,583 people, 1,767 residents were excluded mainly because they were migrant workers when this study was performed. Finally, 17,816 (90.98%) people were included as eligible subjects. They received a comprehensive eye examination and a structured questionnaire voluntarily. Patients with pterygium were defined as having pterygium at the time of survey or pterygium surgery had been performed. 1,876 people were diagnosed as pterygium, either unilateral (1,083) or bilateral (793), which is equivalent to a prevalence of 10.53% (95% CI, 10.08–10.98). The multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that pterygium was independently associated with older age, areas, outdoor time, educational level, and use of hat and/or sunglasses. The prevalence of pterygium increased with age and hours spent under sunshine per day. Meanwhile, the higher the educational level and the more use of hat and/or sunglasses, the lower the pterygium prevalence

Segmenting diabetic retinopathy lesions in multispectral images using low-dimensional spatial-spectral matrix representation

International audienceMultispectral Imaging (MSI) provides a sequence of en-face fundus spectral slices and allows for the examination of structures and signatures throughout the thickness of retina to characterize diabetic retinopathy (DR) lesions comprehensively. Manual interpretation of MSI images is commonly conducted by qualitatively analyzing both the spatial and spectral properties of multiple spectral slices. Meanwhile, there exist few computerbased algorithms that can effectively exploit the spatial and spectral information of MSI images for the diagnosis of DR. We propose a new approach that can quantify the spatialspectral features of MSI retinal images for automatic DR lesion segmentation. It combines a generalized low-rank approximation of matrices (GLRAM) with a supervised regularization term (SRT) to generate low-dimensional spatial-spectral representations using the feature vectors in all spectral slices. Experimental results showed that the proposed approach is very effective for the segmentation of DR lesions in MSI images, which suggests it as an interesting tool for assisting ophthalmologists in diagnosing, analyzing, and managing DR lesions in MSI

Ecological comparison of six countries in two waves of COVID-19

ObjectiveThe purpose of this study is to provide experience and evidence support for countries to deal with similar public health emergencies such as COVID-19 by comparing and analyzing the measures taken by six countries in epidemic prevention and control.MethodsThis study extracted public data on COVID-19 from the official website of various countries and used ecological comparative research methods to compare the specific situation of indicators such as daily tests per thousand people, stringency index, and total vaccinations per hundred people in countries.ResultsThe cumulative death toll in China, Germany and Australia was significantly lower than that in the United States, South Africa and Italy. Expanding the scale of testing has helped control the spread of the epidemic to some extent. When the epidemic situation is severe, the stringency index increases, and when the epidemic situation tends to ease, the stringency index decreases. Increased vaccination rates, while helping to build an immune barrier, still need to be used in conjunction with non-drug interventions.ConclusionThe implementation of non-drug interventions and vaccine measures greatly affected the epidemic prevention and control effect. In responding to public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 epidemic, countries should draw on international experience, closely align with their national conditions, follow the laws of epidemiology, actively take non-drug intervention measures, and vigorously promote vaccine research and development and vaccination

TXNIP inhibition in the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus: design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of quinazoline derivatives

AbstractThioredoxin interacting protein (TXNIP) is a potential drug target for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) treatment. A series of quinazoline derivatives were designed, synthesised, and evaluated to inhibit TXNIP expression and protect from palmitate (PA)-induced β cell injury. In vitro cell viability assay showed that compounds D-2 and C-1 could effectively protect β cell from PA-induced apoptosis, and subsequent results showed that these two compounds decreased TXNIP expression by accelerating its protein degradation. Mechanistically, compounds D-2 and C-1 reduced intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and modulated TXNIP-NLRP3 inflammasome signalling, and thus alleviating oxidative stress injury and inflammatory response under PA insult. Besides, these two compounds were predicted to possess better drug-likeness properties using SwissADME. The present study showed that compounds D-2 and C-1, especially compound D-2, were potent pancreatic β cell protective agents to inhibit TXNIP expression and might serve as promising lead candidates for the treatment of T2DM

Mean value of height, weight, CCT, IOL and CIOP in different groups classified with age.

<p>*There was no significant difference among CCT, IOP and CIOP in groups with different age and in groups with different weight and height.</p

TXNIP aggravates cardiac fibrosis and dysfunction after myocardial infarction in mice by enhancing the TGFB1/Smad3 pathway and promoting NLRP3 inflammasome activation

Myocardial infarction (MI) results in high mortality. The size of fibrotic scar tissue following MI is an independent predictor of MI outcomes. Thioredoxin-interacting protein (TXNIP) is involved in various fibrotic diseases. Its role in post-MI cardiac fibrosis, however, remains poorly understood. In the present study, we investigate the biological role of TXNIP in post-MI cardiac fibrosis and the underlying mechanism using mouse MI models of the wild-type (WT), Txnip-knockout (Txnip-KO) type and Txnip-knock-in (Txnip-KI) type. After MI, the animals present with significantly upregulated TXNIP levels, and their fibrotic areas are remarkably expanded with noticeably impaired cardiac function. These changes are further aggravated under Txnip-KI conditions but are ameliorated in Txnip-KO animals. MI also leads to increased protein levels of the fibrosis indices Collagen I, Collagen III, actin alpha 2 (ACTA2), and connective tissue growth factor (CTGF). The Txnip-KI group exhibits the highest levels of these proteins, while the lowest levels are observed in the Txnip-KO mice. Furthermore, Txnip-KI significantly upregulates the levels of transforming growth factor (TGF)B1, p-Smad3, NOD-, LRR- and pyrin domain-containing protein 3 (NLRP3), Cleaved Caspase-1, and interleukin (IL)1B after MI, but these effects are markedly offset by Txnip-KO. In addition, after MI, the Smad7 level significantly decreases, particularly in the Txnip-KI mice. TXNIP may aggravate the progression of post-MI fibrosis and cardiac dysfunction by activating the NLRP3 inflammasome, followed by IL1B generation and then the enhancement of the TGFB1/Smad3 pathway. As such, TXNIP might serve as a novel potential therapeutic target for the treatment of post-MI cardiac fibrosis

Distribution of central corneal thickness (CCT) in 982 eyes of children aged 7 to 18 years.

<p>CCT is normally distributed. The mean CCT was 554.19±35.46 µm.</p