Assessment of lens autofluorescence in patients with well-controlled essential hypertension and those with renal failure secondary to hypertension undergoing hemodialysis

Purpose: To compare the lens autofluorescence (AF) levels among patients with end-stage renal failure and undergoing hemodialysis secondary to hypertension, patients with well-controlled hypertension, and healthy controls. Method: This study was a prospective, cross-sectional, comparative study conducted between February and April 2018. Two groups of patients and a group of healthy individuals were included in the study. The first group of patients included individuals with a renal insufficiency due to essential hypertension who underwent regular hemodialysis treatment (dialysis group). The second group included patients with well-controlled essential hypertension (hypertension group). Lens autofluorescence was measured via a scanning confocal lens fluorescence biomicroscope optical system for all participants. The measurement of fluorescence ratio is given as a numerical data. The AF results were compared in all groups. Results: The study included 87 individuals. There were 29 individuals (33.3 %) in the dialysis group, 30 (34.5 %) in the hypertension group, and 28 (32.2 %) in the healthy group. The mean fluorescence ratio(FR) was 0.20 +/- 0.06, 0.20 +/- 0.04, and 0.17 +/- 0.04 in the dialysis, hypertension, and healthy groups respectively. There was a significant difference in the mean FR measurements between the three groups (p = .004). As a result of a binary comparison, mean FR values for patients in the dialysis group were higher (0.20 +/- 0.06) than for healthy individuals (0.17 +/- 0.04), which was statistically significant (p = .025). Mean FR measurements of hypertensive patients were higher (0.20 +/- 0.04) than healthy individuals (0.17 +/- 0.04), which was also statistically significant (p = .02). However, there was no statistically significant difference among the mean FR measurements between the hypertension and dialysis groups (p = .63). Conclusion: We demonstrated that lens autofluorescence increased in patients with renal failure undergoing hemodialysis and those with well-controlled hypertension. The mean lens autofluorescence levels were significantly higher in both patient groups than the healthy control group.