Affiliations: [a]
Innovation Center for Neurological Disorders, Department of Neurology, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
| [b]
National Center for Neurological Disorders, National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Diseases, Beijing, China
| [c]
Department of Ophthalmology, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
Correspondence:
[*]
Correspondence to: Qi Qin and Yi Tang, Department of Neurology & Innovation center for neurological disorders, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, National Center for Neurological Disorders, National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Diseases, 45 Changchun Street, Beijing 100053, China. Tel.: +86 10 83198811; E-mail: qinqibao@126.com (Qi Qin) and Tel.: +86 10 83199456; E-mail: tangyi@xwhosp.org (Yi Tang).
Note: [1] These authors contributed equally to this work.
Abstract: Patients with Alzheimer’s disease have difficulty maintaining independent living abilities as the disease progresses, causing an increased burden of care on family caregivers and the healthcare system and related financial strain. This patient group is expected to continue to expand as life expectancy climbs. Current diagnostics for Alzheimer’s disease are complex, unaffordable, and invasive without regard to diagnosis quality at early stages, which urgently calls for more technical improvements for diagnosis specificity. Optical coherence tomography or tomographic angiography has been shown to identify retinal thickness loss and lower vascular density present earlier than symptom onset in these patients. The retina is an extension of the central nervous system and shares anatomic and functional similarities with the brain. Ophthalmological examinations can be an efficient tool to offer a window into cerebral pathology with the merit of easy operation. In this review, we summarized the latest observations on retinal pathology in Alzheimer’s disease and discussed the feasibility of retinal imaging in diagnostic prediction, as well as limitations in current retinal examinations for Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis.
