Retinal vessel oxygen saturation and its correlation with structural changes in retinitis pigmentosa

Purpose To study the influence of retinal structural changes on oxygen saturation in retinitis pigmentosa (RP) patients. Methods Oximetry measurements were performed on 21 eyes of 11 RP patients and compared to 24 eyes of 12 controls. Retinal oxygen saturation was measured in all major retinal arterioles (A‐SO2) and venules (V‐SO2) with an oximetry unit of the retinal vessel analyser (IMEDOS Systems UG, Jena, Germany). Oximetry data were compared with morphological changes measured by Cirrus optical coherence tomography (OCT) (Carl Zeiss Meditec, Dublin, CA, USA, macular thickness protocol). Results In RP patients, the retinal A‐SO2 and V‐SO2 levels were higher at 99.3% (p = 0.001, anova based on mixed‐effects model) and 66.8% (p