2023-12-14 19:50:00
It has been discovered that patients with chronic kidney disease have thinner retinal walls. / Shutterstock
A study has shown that changes in kidney function can be easily tracked using retinal imaging of the eye.
Dr. Neraj Daun’s research team, a nephrologist at the Cardiovascular Sciences Center at the University of Edinburgh, UK, announced research results showing that kidney disease can be diagnosed and its progression tracked using 3D imaging using optical coherence tomography (OCT), commonly used in ophthalmology. MedicalXpress recently reported that
OCT uses light waves to create cross-sectional images of the retina, showing the thin layers of nerve cells that make up the inner wall of the retina within minutes.
The retina is the only area that shows the circulation of microvasculature, the smallest blood vessels in the human body. If you have kidney disease, blood circulation through your microvasculature is affected.
The research team compared and analyzed OCT images of 204 patients with different stages of kidney disease, including those who had undergone kidney transplantation, and 86 healthy people without kidney disease.
As a result, it was found that patients with chronic kidney disease have thinner retinal walls.
It has also been found that in patients with chronic kidney disease, the thickness of the inner retinal wall becomes thinner as kidney function declines.
In particular, in patients who received a kidney transplant with the most severe kidney disease, the thickness of the inner retinal wall rapidly thinned immediately following the transplant surgery.
However, in patients whose kidney function recovered following kidney transplantation, the retinal inner layer thickness also returned to normal.
Therefore, the research team predicts that one day it will be possible to detect kidney disease early using retinal endometrial imaging and block the progression of kidney disease through follow-up.
The research team said that this new method might also determine whether the kidney responds to a new kidney disease treatment and, if so, how it responds by measuring changes in retinal lining thickness.
In addition, this new method is expected to bring regarding a groundbreaking change in tracking the progression of kidney disease, which tends to progress without symptoms.
With current testing methods, it is difficult to detect until the kidneys have lost regarding half of their function, but experts say this technology might enable early diagnosis.
Dr Aislin McMahon, head of policy and research at the British Society for Kidney Research, commented that it was a ‘fantastic’ way to monitor kidney health very easily.
The results of this study were published in the latest issue of the British scientific journal ‘Nature Communications’. (Seoul = Yonhap News)
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