title: Age- and Sex-Dependency of Laser Speckle Flowgraphy Measurements of Optic Nerve Vessel Microcirculation.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the relationship between various characteristics of a normal population and laser speckle flowgraphy (LSFG) measurements of mean blur rate (MBR) in the optic nerve head (ONH).
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 189 eyes of 189 normal subjects (93 male, 96 female, mean age 45 ± 14 years old, age range: 20-72) without any history of hypertension, hyperlipidemia or diabetes were enrolled. ONH microcirculation was measured with LSFG and overall MBR (MA), vessel-area MBR (MV), and tissue-area MBR (MT) were derived from these measurements. The statistical association of these measurements with characteristics such as sex, age, intraocular pressure (IOP) and systolic blood pressure (SBP) was then determined.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There was a trend towards decreased IOP and MV and increased SBP with age (P = 0.002, P = 0.035, and P = 0.006, respectively). Furthermore, IOP, MV and SBP were correlated with age (r = -0.23, P = 0.011; r = -0.24, P < 0.001; and r = 0.30, P < 0.001, respectively). Separate multiple regression analyses of independent contributing factors revealed that sex and IOP contributed to MA (P < 0.001 and P = 0.002, respectively), sex, IOP, and age contributed to MV (P < 0.001, P = 0.003, and P = 0.024, respectively), while only IOP contributed to MT (P = 0.003).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In a normal population, MBR was affected by IOP in both the large vessel and capillary areas of the ONH, but not by SBP. MV was also affected by age and sex, while MT was stable independent of age or sex.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Naoko
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Aizawa
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.|Department of Retinal Disease Control, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kunikata
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Fumihiko
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Nitta
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Yukihiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shiga
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Kazuko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Omodaka
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Satoru
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tsuda
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.|Department of Retinal Disease Control, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.|Department of Advanced Ophthalmic Medicine, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Toru
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nakazawa
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001794:Blood Pressure; D005260:Female; D064368:Healthy Volunteers; D006801:Humans; D017078:Laser-Doppler Flowmetry / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008833:Microcirculation; D008875:Middle Aged; D009898:Optic Disk / Q000098:blood supply; D009900:Optic Nerve / Q000098:blood supply*; D012039:Regional Blood Flow; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D055815:Young Adult