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New criteria for evaluation of electroretinogram in patients with retinitis pigmentosa

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Abstract

Background

Electroretinogram (ERG) plays an essential role in the diagnosis of retinal disease. Choosing appropriate methods could extract valuable information from ERG. In this study, a new criterion based on time–frequency domain analysis was proposed to investigate the retina in retinitis pigmentosa (RP) patients.

Materials and methods

The total number of 16 eyes from eight RP patients and 20 eyes from age-matched healthy subjects were assessed. The signals included photopic and scotopic ERGs. Continuous wavelet transform was applied to ERGs. Dominant frequencies were extracted, and the contours related to these dominant frequencies were selected. As a new criterion, the areas related to dominant frequency contours were considered a feature to differentiate the RP and normal groups. To better evaluate the proposed criterion results, the time-domain analysis characteristics of ERG were also considered.

Results

The results showed an increase in implicit time and reduced amplitude in RP patients (P < 0.05). A significant decrease of dominant frequencies and increasing their occurrence time were seen in ERG of RP patients. Also, in RP patients, the third dominant frequency was disappeared from the three main frequencies observed in photopic ERGs of normal subjects. The area criterion showed a significant decrease in RP groups (P < 0.05).

Conclusion

RP can cause changes in the time and time–frequency components of the ERG. The area index could represent a new view of the characteristics of the ERG in the time–frequency domain. This criterion can help the ophthalmologist to have a better evaluation of retinal disease.

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Abbreviations

BCVA:

Best-corrected visual acuity

COI:

Cone of influence

CWT:

Continuous wavelet transform

DWT:

Discrete wavelet transform

ECG:

Electrocardiogram

EEG:

Electroencephalogram

ERG:

Electroretinogram

FA:

Fourier analysis

ffERG:

Full-field ERG

ISCEV:

Clinical electrophysiology of vision

LCA:

Leber's congenital amaurosis

LogMAR:

Logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution

OD:

Ocular dexter

OPs:

Oscillatory potentials

OS:

Ocular sinister

PDR:

Proliferative diabetic retinopathy

ROP:

Retinopathy of prematurity

RP:

Retinitis pigmentosa

SD:

Standard deviation

SNR:

Signal-to-noise ratio

STFT:

Short-time Fourier transform

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Acknowledgements

This article is taken from the disease registry, titled "The Iranian National Registry of Inherited Retinal Dystrophy (IRDReg®)" and code number of IR.SBMU.ORC.REC.1396.15 from the ethics committee supported by the deputy of research and technology in Shahid Beheshti University of medical sciences (http://dregistry.sbmu.ac.ir).

Funding

Ophthalmic Research Center of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences funded this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ophthalmic Epidemiology Research Center, Research Institute for Ophthalmology and Vision Science, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Hamideh Sabbaghi

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

    Soroor Behbahani

  3. Ocular Tissue Engineering Research Center, Research Institute for Ophthalmology and Vision Science, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Narsis Daftarian

  4. Ophthalmic Research Center, Research Institute for Ophthalmology and Vision Science, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Hamid Ahmadieh

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  1. Hamideh Sabbaghi
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Correspondence to Soroor Behbahani.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were according to the standards of the Ethics Committee of the Ophthalmic Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, and correlated with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Sabbaghi, H., Behbahani, S., Daftarian, N. et al. New criteria for evaluation of electroretinogram in patients with retinitis pigmentosa. Doc Ophthalmol 143, 271–281 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10633-021-09843-x

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