New Study Shows an Eye Scan Can Detect Signs of Alzheimer’s Disease

The Duke Eye Center have discovered that the small blood vessels in the retina at the back of the eye of patients with Alzheimer’s are altered through the help of a new, non-invasive device. The researchers also revealed that they can distinguish between people with Alzheimer’s and those with only mild cognitive impairment. The study, published online in Ophthalmology Retina, a journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, brings forth a quick and inexpensive way to detect the disease in its early stages.

The imaging used in the research is called optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA). It enables physicians to see blood vessels in the back of the eye that are smaller than a strand of hair. Researchers have focused several studies on the retina because it is an extension of the brain and shares many similarities with it, and thus the changes within the retina may mirror the changes within the brain in Alzheimer’s sufferers.

The study consisted of using OCTA to study the retinas in 70 eyes of 39 Alzheimer’s patients with 72 eyes of 37 people with mild cognitive impairment, as well as 254 eyes of 133 cognitively healthy people. The researchers found that those with Alzheimer’s had loss of small retinal blood vessels at the back of the eye and that a specific layer of the retina was thinner when compared to people with mild cognitive impairment and healthy people.

See New Study Shows an Eye Scan Can Detect Signs of Alzheimer’s Disease, Science Blog, March 11, 2019.