Retinal Imaging and Systemic Vascular Disease: Recent Advances and Perspective

Dear Colleagues,

The healthcare burden of cardio and cerebrovascular disease remains a priority. Understanding their underlying mechanisms and improving identification of people with higher systemic vascular risk profile with non-invasive examinations seem to be crucial. In Ophthalmology, retinal imaging is simple, non-invasive and it can provide in vivo insight of the retinal microcirculation. For more than ten years, research teams have been working on software developed to allow automatic analysis of the retinal vascular network from different imaging technique (fundus photographs, oct-angiography or adaptive optics…) and to provide a description of the geometric characteristics of its arterial and venous components. At the same time, research teams have explored the pathophysiological association between macro vascular and micro vascular alterations. Thus, retinal microcirculation could be considered as a witness of the systemic vascular status. New approach with retinal images dataset and artificial intelligence algorithms recently strengthened the interest of retinal microvascular biomarker. In spite of the large volume of associated research, the interest of retinal biomarker in terms of screening, monitoring or prediction of systemic vascular disease remain uncertain.

The aim of this Topic is to gather retinal imaging research as well as epidemiological or artificial intelligence papers focused on the relationship between retinal vascular network and systemic vascular disease.

Dr. Louis Arnould
Prof. Dr. Ryo Kawasaki
Prof. Dr. Fabrice Meriaudeau
Prof. Dr. João Barbosa-Breda
Topic Editors