Comparative study of lipid profile influence on foveal avascular central zone

Purpose: To evaluate the influence of lipid profile on foveal avascular central zone (ACZ) using Swept Source Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography (SS‐OCT A). Methods: A cross‐sectional, comparative study including 30 eyes of 15 volunteers with no history of ocular disease or surgery was conducted in the department of ophthalmology of Habib Thameur University Hospital, Tunis. SS‐OCT A imaging was performed using the DRI‐OCT Triton (Topcon, Japan). The macula was imaged using 3 × 3 mm scans, and superficial retinal OCT angiograms were extracted and analysed. Foveal ACZ was characterized by its perimeter, its area, its circularity, the aspect ratio (AR), the roundness index (Round), the solidity and the Feret's diameter (Feret). Patients with dyslipemia were compared to a control group using the Mann–Whitney U‐test and the degree of correlation between two variables was expressed as the Spearman's correlation coefficient. Results: Eleven males and four females were included in the study. Sixteen eyes of eight patients (53.3%) with dyslipemia were compared to fourteen eyes of 7 healthy controls (46.7%). Mean age was 53.33 ± 9.73 years. Mean total ACZ measurements were: Perimeter (2.63 ± 0.53), Area (3.98 ± 1.49), Circularity (7.07 ± 0.97), AR (1.23 ± 0.23), Round (8.32 ± 1.18), Solidity (8.86 ± 0.41) and Feret (6.53 ± 3.24). Comparative study revealed that ACZ area was higher in the dyslipemia group than in the control group (4.64 vs. 3.31, p = 0.02). There was no significant difference between the two groups in the other measurements of ACZ. Conclusions: Dyslipemia causes enlargement of the foveal avascular central zone without affecting its form. These results suggest that dyslipemia may affect foveal vascular structure potentially through chronic ischemia mechanisms.