PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Miguel Ángel Zapata
AU  - Sandra Banderas García
AU  - Adrián Sánchez-Moltalvá
AU  - Anna Falcó
AU  - Susana Otero-Romero
AU  - Gabriel Arcos
AU  - Daniel Velazquez-Villoria
AU  - Jose García-Arumí
TI  - Retinal microvascular abnormalities in patients after COVID-19 depending on disease severity
AID  - 10.1136/bjophthalmol-2020-317953
DP  - 2020 Dec 15
TA  - British Journal of Ophthalmology
PG  - bjophthalmol-2020-317953
4099  - http://bjo.bmj.com/content/early/2021/01/21/bjophthalmol-2020-317953.short
4100  - http://bjo.bmj.com/content/early/2021/01/21/bjophthalmol-2020-317953.full
AB  - Background 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.Materials and methods Case–control study. Patients between 18 and 55 years old with PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection within the last 3 months were included. Risk stratification: 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.Results 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).Conclusion 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.