Detection of superficial and buried optic disc drusen with swept-source optical coherence tomography.

BACKGROUND: To detect the superficial and buried optic disc drusen (ODD) with swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT). METHODS: Retrospective cross-sectional study. Twenty patients (age 18-74 years) diagnosed with ODD via B-scan ultrasonography were analysed. All patients underwent color fundus photography (CFP), B-scan ultrasonography, fundus autofluorescence (FAF), and SS-OCT. We defined each hyporeflective signal mass of SS-OCT as an ODD, recorded its location and relationship with Bruch's membrane opening (BMO), and other ophthalmic imaging characteristics. RESULTS: Twenty (33 eyes) patients had 54 ODDs in all, except one eye did not show abnormal optic disc findings on SS-OCT. We classified ODD into three categories: ODD above BMO, ODD across BMO, and ODD below BMO. The ODDs across BMO were the largest, followed by ODDs below BMO, and those above BMO. The location of the ODDs: One (1.9%) was in the border tissue of Elschnig, 6 (11.1%) might span across the lamina cribrosa, 16 (29.6%) were above BMO located in the neuroepithelial layer, 9 (16.7%) spanned across BMO located near the center of the optic disc, 18 (33.3%) were below BMO located near the center of the optic disc, 4 (7.4%) were below BMO located within the optic disc rim. When the anterior margin was ≥ 100 µm from the BMO, clear autofluorescence could be seen. CONCLUSION: Multimodal imaging provided a deeper understanding of ODD. SS-OCT illustrated more details about the relationship between the posterior surface of ODD, BMO and the lamina cribrosa.

Metabolomics and biomarkers in ocular matrix: beyond ocular diseases.

According to the recent report, there are 870 million people suffer from ocular diseases worldwide. The present approaches for diagnosis are morphological examination, imaging examination and immunological examination, regrettably, they lack of sensitivity and difficult to make a definite diagnosis in the early stage. Systemic biology as an effective method has been used in clinical diagnosis and treatment for diseases, especially metabolomics which is more attractive with high sensitivity and accuracy. Although previous researches had been confirmed that endogenous metabolites in the ocular matrix play a crucial role in the progress of diseases related diseases, the standard protocols and systematic summary about the biomarker researches based on ocular matrix has not been established. This review article highlights the pretreatment for ocular matrix and the new biomarkers expressed by the eye diseases, expected to promote the application of biomarkers in the diagnosis and treatment of eye diseases.

Knockdown of lncRNA PVT1 inhibits retinoblastoma progression by sponging miR-488-3p.

Emerging evidence suggests that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play a regulatory role in the pathogenesis and progression of retinoblastoma (RB). lncRNA plasmacytoma variant translocation 1 (PVT1) is highly expressed in a plenty of tumors, and is believed to serve as an oncogene. However, the expression, roles, and action mechanisms of PVT1 in the carcinogenesis and progression of RB are still largely unknown. In this study, we found that PVT1 was upregulated in RB tissues and cell lines. PVT1 levels correlated with optic nerve invasion, and intraocular international retinoblastoma classify (IIRC) stage. In addition, the results demonstrated that patients with RB who showed higher expression of PVT1 had worse overall survivals. In WERI-Rb1 and Y79 cells, PVT1 silencing significantly inhibited cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and cell cycle progression and induced cell apoptosis in vitro. Moreover, in vivo xenograft assay indicated that PVT1 knockdown suppressed the tumor volume and tumor weight. The analysis of the mechanisms of action revealed that the reduction of PVT1 inhibited the expression of notch2 by upregulating miR-488-3p. In general, our results demonstrated that PVT1 may be a novel biomarker for prognosis and a new target for the treatment of RB.

Effect of glucocorticoid on cytokines TLR9 and TLR7 in peripheral blood for patients with uveitis.

The effect of glucocorticoid on cytokines Toll-like receptor (TLR)9 and TLR7 in peripheral blood of patients with uveitis was explored. Forty-six patients with uveitis admitted to our hospital from April 2014 to April 2015 were selected as the research observational group. Thirty-five able-bodied individuals in the same period were selected as the control group. To treat uveitis, the observational group was injected with glucocorticoid (1-2 mg/kg/day) daily, while the control group did not receive any treatment. The quantity of expression of peripheral blood cytokines TLR9 and TLR7 were detected by the methods of fluorescence quantitative PCR, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and western blotting. The content of peripheral blood TLR9 and TLR7 (0.21±0.01, 0.19±0.01) decreased significantly (P<0.05) in observational group after glucocorticoid treatment. Compared with data of control group (0.21±0.01, 0.19±0.01), TLR9 and TLR7 content in peripheral blood after glucocorticoid treatment on the patients with uveitis from observation group (0.19±0.01, 0.17±0.01) did not show any significant difference, for correlation between TLR9 and TLR7 in observation group before and after treatment. It was observed that the cytokine content of TLR9 was associated with TLR7 positively (r=0.653, P=0.012). In conclusion, glucocorticoid can improve uveitis by reducing the content of cytokines TLR9 and TLR7 in peripheral blood.