Foveal avascular zone and choroidal thickness are decreased in subjects with hard drusen and without high genetic risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease

Authors

Inés López-Cuenca
Rosa de Hoz
Celia Alcantara-Rey
Elena Salobrar-García
Lorena Elvira-Hurtado
José A. Fernández-Albarral
Ana Barabash
Federico Ramírez-Toraño
Jaisalmer de Frutos-Lucas, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Juan J. Salazar
Ana I. Ramírez
José M. Ramírez

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Title

Biomedicines

Volume

9

Issue

6

Publisher

MDPI

School

Centre for Precision Health

RAS ID

38918

Funders

Funding information : https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines9060638

Comments

López-Cuenca, I., de Hoz, R., Alcántara-Rey, C., Salobrar-García, E., Elvira-Hurtado, L., Fernández-Albarral, J. A., ... Ramírez, J. M. (2021).Foveal avascular zone and choroidal thickness are decreased in subjects with hard drusen and without high genetic risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Biomedicines, 9(6), article 638. https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines9060638

Abstract

A family history (FH+) of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and ɛ4 allele of the ApoE gene are the main genetic risk factors for developing AD, whereas ɛ4 allele plays a protective role in age-related macular degeneration. Ocular vascular changes have been reported in both pathologies. We analyzed the choroidal thickness using optical coherence tomography (OCT) and the foveal avascular zone (FAZ) using OCT-angiography and compared the results with ApoE gene expression, AD FH+, and the presence or absence of hard drusen (HD) in 184 cognitively healthy subjects. Choroidal thickness was statistically significantly different in the (FH−, ɛ4−, HD+) group compared with (i) both the (FH−, ɛ4−, HD−) and the (FH+, ɛ4+, HD+) groups in the superior and inferior points at 1500 μm, and (ii) the (FH+, ɛ4−, HD+) group in the superior point at 1500 μm. There were statistically significant differences in the superficial FAZ between the (FH+, ɛ4−, HD+) group and (i) the (FH+, ɛ4−, HD−) group and (ii) the (FH+, ɛ4+, HD−) group. In conclusion, ocular vascular changes are not yet evident in participants with a genetic risk of developing AD.

DOI

10.3390/biomedicines9060638

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