Choroidal Changes after Cardiopulmonary Bypass

AIM:

Choroid, which is the vascular tissue
responsible for blood supply to the outer parts of the retina, might be
affected by hemodynamic events. We aimed to reveal choroidal thickness
and ocular pulse amplitude changes after cardiopulmonary bypass in which
gross hemodynamic alterations occur.

METHODS:

Forty-two
eyes of 42 patients who underwent heart surgery with cardiopulmonary
bypass were examined in this prospective, cross-sectional case series.
The spectral domain optical coherence tomography (Spectralis,
Heidelberg, Germany) was used to analyze sub-foveal choroidal thickness.
The ocular pulse amplitude, the surrogate of gross choroidal blood
flow, was measured with the Pascal dynamic contour tonometer (Pascal
DCT, Swiss Microtechnology AG, Port, Switzerland).. The intraocular
pressure was also measured with this tonometer. The examinations were
performed pre-operatively and post-operatively at the first week and
first month.

RESULTS:

The mean age of the patients was
58.8 ± 12.4 years. The mean sub-foveal choroidal thickness and ocular
pulse amplitude values did not change statistically significantly after
the operations at the follow-up visits (p>0.05). Also, there were no
important correlations between cardiopulmonary bypass time and mean
sub-foveal choroidal thickness and ocular pulse amplitude changes at the
post-operative first week (p>0.05). The intraocular pressure values
were decreased markedly at the control visits (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS:

Sub-foveal
choroidal thickness and ocular pulse amplitude are unchanged, while
intraocular pressure decreases one week and one month after
cardiopulmonary bypass.