# Assessment of Retinal Capillary Density, Morphology and Function in Retinal Vascular Disease Using Novel OCT Angiography Based Metrics

> **NIH NIH R01** · JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $732,222

## Abstract

Abstract
Diabetes mellitus (DM) and hypertension (HTN) are two prototypical vascular diseases associated with
microscopic pathological changes in retinal capillary structure. These changes ultimately lead to capillary
dysfunction, capillary closure, ischemia and vision loss. Current clinical methods and diagnostics for staging
these diseases are neither effective in detecting the earliest capillary changes nor in detecting incremental
capillary changes (improvement or worsening) in later stages of the disease. For example, clinical detection of
capillary loss is generally not possible by clinical examination alone. Fluorescein angiography (FA) is an
invasive test that has been traditionally used to assess retinal perfusion but human studies show that the
resolution and technical limitations of FA is only effective in detecting capillary loss after ~50% or more of
capillaries are already non-perfused. In addition, FA is not clinically indicated unless there are already clinical
signs of late stage disease and neovascularization. Therefore, reliably detecting and characterizing subclinical
retinal capillary changes in DM and HTN represents an important opportunity to decrease disease burden and
cost by enabling early diagnosis, clinical trials and interventions before irreversible tissue damage. Optical
coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) is a safe, non-invasive and FDA approved method that provides a
unique opportunity to achieve these goals. Our group of physicians, scientists and engineers have been
pioneers in the development and application of OCTA technology. In this proposal, we seek to shift the current
research and clinical practice paradigms in assessment of retinal vascular disease by utilizing cutting-edge
commercially available OCTA technology and novel image acquisition methods to identify and measure
subclinical changes in capillary structure and function. Our preliminary data shows that subclinical capillary
loss occurs in all stages of DR. In this proposal we will (1) further characterize capillary changes in well
controlled, non-interventional clinical trial of human subjects across race, age, gender and other possible
confounding variables by taking advantage of well-characterized subjects from NIH-funded population based
studies. (2) Assess the feasibility and reliability of novel OCTA measures of retinal capillary function. (3) To
further characterize the magnitude and physiological relevance of these capillary changes we will use a custom
built functional swept-source OCTA (FOCTA) to assess real time and in vivo retinal vascular responses during
a focal physiologic light stimulus. The successful outcome of this proposal will develop and implement novel
SD- and SS-OCTA based technology in human subjects to identify novel biomarkers of capillary loss or closure
in DM and HTN. Application of these biomarkers will improve the diagnosis and management of disease by
allowing direct evaluation of capillary changes and ischemia in...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10245006
- **Project number:** 5R01EY030564-04
- **Recipient organization:** JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Amir H Kashani
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $732,222
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-09-01 → 2025-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10245006

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10245006, Assessment of Retinal Capillary Density, Morphology and Function in Retinal Vascular Disease Using Novel OCT Angiography Based Metrics (5R01EY030564-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10245006. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*