The Impact of Acute COVID-19 on the Retinal Microvasculature Assessed with Multimodal Imaging.

To quantify retinal microvascular findings in the acute phase of COVID-19 using multimodal imaging and compare them with healthy, age-matched controls. Hospitalized patients in the acute phase of COVID-19 without known systemic comorbidities (n = 75) and healthy controls (n = 101) aged 18–65 were enrolled in this prospective cross-sectional study. The retinal microcirculation and microvasculature impairments were assessed using fundus photography, swept-source optical coherence tomography, and swept-source optical coherence tomography angiography in the COVID-19 unit and compared with healthy, age-matched controls. Retinal findings were predominately observed in patients with severe disease (P = 0.006). Patients with severe disease were shown to have increased both mean vein diameter (Coef. = 19.28, 95