In spontaneously hypertensive rats, superficial microvascular rarefaction and inner retinal dysfunction represent the initiating pathological events, preceding blood-retinal barrier breakdown and macrovascular remodeling. Optical coherence tomography angiography-quantified superficial vascular plexus density is a sensitive and objective imaging biomarker for assessing retinal damage during the prehypertensive stage, which significantly precedes macrovascular signs.
Huang et al. (Wed,) studied this question.