Telangiectasia is a network of blood capillaries — a type of spider vein — that some people with underlying medical conditions can catch. It develops when there are problems with the tiny blood vessels around the fovea, which is the center of the macula that gives us our sharpest central vision.
MacTel is seen in one in 10,000 eye patients. It is mainly seen in women and people with diabetes. The Indian Journal of Ophthalmology, a peer-reviewed indexed journal, published the study in December 2021.
“Usually stage one is interpreted as mild disease and stage four as severe disease. However, in MacTel visual acuity often does not correlate with the conventional staging scheme. So there must be another guiding parameter,” said Dr. Aditya Kelkar, eye surgeon and principal investigator.
The new approach cleverly uses non-invasive optical coherence tomography (OCTA) angiography to accurately track vision loss in patients with MacTel. “With OCT angiography, we are able to clearly see the network of retinal veins. Non-invasive angiography clearly defines the network of retinal blood veins called telangiectasia and helps to track vision loss by measuring the circumference of the retinal spider veins or MacTel,” said Dr. Kelkar, Medical Director, NIO.
NIO eye surgeons studied 40 patients with MacTel for six months in 2019. “We will follow them for the next five years to assess whether the vertical or horizontal diameter has further increased, affecting central vision,” said Dr. Jai Kelkar , another researcher. The other researchers were Jai Kelkar, Sayali Tidke, Aanchal Agarwal, Mounika Bolisetty and Shreekant Kelkar.
Retinal surgeon Muna Bhende from Chennai, in her commentary on the study, said: “The dynamic changes that occur in the natural history of the disease, particularly with regard to retinal cavitations in OCT, underscore the need to select reliable, reproducible imaging techniques and parameters. , and easily interpreted.
