Studies of the retinal circulation with fluorescein

Abstract

A retinal camera has been modified so that it can be used to photograph the passage through the eye of intravenously injected fluorescein. The dye passes rapidly out along the arteries, through the capillaries and layers into the veins from small tributaries as individual bright streams along the outer walls. Mixing of the various streams of blood is slow except where arteriolovenous nipping sets up turbulence in the vein. Laminar flow has been demonstrated in both arteries and veins. In the best photographs individual capillaries can be seen, and a thin dark line, mainly the thickness of the vessel wall, separates the edge of the capillary net from the lumen of the vessel. Vascular abnormalities which were invisible with the ophthalmoscope were demonstrated in some patients with hypertension and others with diabetes. Often such abnormal vessels appear particularly permeable to fluorescein. © 1962, British Medical Journal Publishing Group. All rights reserved.