Semiautomated Analysis of Retinal Vessel Diameter in Retinopathy of Prematurity Patients with and Without Plus Disease

Purpose: To determine the feasibility of using semiautomated analysis of digital fundus images to quantify the differences in retinal vascular diameter between retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) patients with and without plus disease.

Design: Case-control study.

Methods: Thirty eyes of 15 patients with ROP were included in this study. Fourteen eyes of seven patients had plus disease and 16 eyes of eight patients had no evidence of plus disease. Digital fundus images were captured using an NM200D (Nidek, Inc, Aichi, Japan) camera. Vessel diameters were determined using VesselMap software (Imedos, Jena, Germany). The Student t test analysis was used to compare diameters of vessels with and without plus disease.

Results: We found that the average venous diameter is significantly larger by 15% in the group with plus disease.

Conclusions: VesselMap analysis of digital images is feasible. This method is able to distinguish between veins with and without plus disease, and may be useful in telemedicine screening strategies.