Advanced retinal imaging for kidney precision medicine

Retinal imaging provides a noninvasive window into systemic vascular injury that may facilitate kidney precision medicine.The eye and kidney share common mechanisms of damage, and the retina is readily available for direct visualization.

Advanced procedures have been developed for clinical and mechanistic retinal evaluation, including fundus photography and fluorescein angiography, which have been standardized to quantify retinopathy status and retinal nonperfusion, as well as optical coherence tomography (OCT) and optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA), which provide detailed evaluations of retinal and choroidal structure and vasculature.

Dr. Ian de Boer, professor (Nephrology) is PI on a R01 from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) to determine how advanced noninvasive retinal imaging can be used to understand the mechanisms, subtypes, and outcomes of chronic kidney disease (CKD) that are common among people with diabetes and hypertension.

The ultimate goal of this work is to use retinal imaging to inform individual patients of their personal CKD diagnosis, prognosis, and optimal treatment options.