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Application of electrophysiological tests in the evaluation of early thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy

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Abstract

Purpose

To compare the electrophysiology between mild thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy (TAO) patients and normal population.

Methods

The present research was a retrospective observational study and enrolled consecutive patients diagnosed with mild TAO according to European Group on Graves’s Orbitopathy with corrected to normal vision. Full-field electroretinography, pattern visual evoked potential (PVEP) and isolated-check visual evoked potential (icVEP) were performed for TAO patients and age-matched normal subjects.

Results

Thirty-two eyes with mild TAO and forty-six eyes from normal subjects were included. Statistically significant increase in the amplitude of dark-adapted 0.01, 3 and 10 ERG and total oscillatory potentials and light-adapted 3 and 30 Hz flicker ERG were observed in TAO patients compared with the normal subjects, but not the latency. No significant difference was observed in the P100 amplitude or latency in 1° and 15′ PVEP between TAO patients and normal subjects. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was not significantly different in TAO patients at the contrast of 1%, 2%, 8%, 16% or 32% icVEP, and the SNR in contrast 4% icVEP was significantly smaller in TAO patients compared to normal subjects.

Conclusion

Mild TAO patients can have electrophysiological changes that might indicate neural changes in the early disease phase.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the grant from Chinese Capital’s Funds for Health Improvement and Research (Grant Number: CFH2018-2-4093) and National Science and Technology Major Project (Grant Number: 2018ZX10101004). The sponsor or funding organization had no role in the design or conduct of this research.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Yanjie Tian, Yuexin Wang and Jiahui Ma have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ophthalmology, Beijing Key Laboratory of Restoration of Damaged Ocular Nerve, Peking University Third Hospital, 49 North Garden Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100191, China

    Yanjie Tian, Yuexin Wang, Jiahui Ma & Xuemin Li

Authors
  1. Yanjie Tian
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  2. Yuexin Wang
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  3. Jiahui Ma
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  4. Xuemin Li
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the conceptualization and design of the research. Data collection was performed by YT, YW and JM, and data analysis was performed by YW, JM and XL. The original draft was written by YW, and the manuscript was reviewed and revised by all authors. All authors approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xuemin Li.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethics approval

The research was conducted according to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. And the protocol was approved by the local review board.

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The consent for publication has been obtained from all authors.

Statement of human rights

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Not applicable.

Informed consent

Informed consent was not obtained from each individual participant. The ethics committee approved the exemption of informed consent because the research retrospectively collected data and could not obtain consent from each individual participant technically.

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Tian, Y., Wang, Y., Ma, J. et al. Application of electrophysiological tests in the evaluation of early thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy. Doc Ophthalmol 142, 343–351 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10633-020-09808-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10633-020-09808-6

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