Top-bottom differences in retinal vascular properties

Differences in tortuosity between top and bottom retinal vasculature

Jonathan NICOLET-DIT_FÉLIX, Bertille BOURG, Louis HEAU

'Superviser: Sacha BORS'

Presentation of the project: why is it important/relevant?

Retina fundus images are a type of picture taken by a special camera through the iris. They allow us to visualise the vasculature of the retina. This is a very convenient non-invasive way to obtain an insight of the body's vascular features, and the ultimate goal is to be able to use these pictures as a proxy for different diseases linked to vasculature such as ocular diseases (diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma) but also more general cardiovascular diseases like stroke, coronary heart disease or hypertension.

But to make the link between diseases and the retinal vasculature, we need to extract features from the fundus images such as (the number of bifurcation, the length, the evolution of the diameter...). One of the features that has recently drawn attention is tortuosity: how sinuous a blood vessel segment is compared to the direct length from its two extremities. Tortuosity is an important feature to study because it has potential links with cardiovascular diseases.

What is unknown is if there is a difference between the tortuosity in the top of the retina vs the bottom for arteries or veins.