Abstract

The retina is among the few tissues in the human body where blood circulation can be observed directly and noninvasively. This has facilitated a detailed description of the morphological changes of the retinal vasculature caused by many ocular and systemic diseases. Despite the accessibility of the retinal vasculature and the obvious importance of blood flow, quantitative data on the retinal hemodynamics in the normal and diseased retina is not available to the clinician. Assessments of "normal" or "low" flow based on fluorescein angiography remain qualitative and the fluorescein dye dilution technique has had limited success in providing a quantitative measure of retinal blood flow.

© 1987 Optical Society of America