<International Circulation>: In the retina， can you see the vessel stiffness?
　　Prof. Duprez: There are special techniques whereby you can study the dynamics. If you do a classical eye fundus exam， you look for morphological changes but there are now techniques where you can study the dynamics of what is happening but I think that is still more within the scope of research. You can certainly see the number of branches when people have a remodeling of their retinal arteries. I wrote an editorial several years ago， The Eye: The Mirror of the Heart， and I was asked to write it because the MESA Study I mentioned earlier which included about 20% American-Chinese found that if there were any early changes in the retinal vessels， these patients were much more prone not only to develop stroke but coronary heart disease as well. That is why it was suggested that the eye is a mirror for the heart. Of course， you can choose a much more sophisticated test like a coronary artery calcium score and so on， but we should not forget that in the Chinese， calcification of the arteries is much less than in Caucasians and on top of that， the Asians have the tendency to develop more microvascular disease than large vessel disease.

　　《国际循环》：在视网膜血管能否观察到动脉僵硬？
　　Duprez教授：通过一种特殊技术，我们可以观察视网膜血管僵硬度的动态变化。在进行经典的眼底检查时，我们观察的是形态学变化，但是现在通过一些技术，我们可以动态地观察变化。不过，我认为这还只是处于研究阶段。当然如果患者出现视网膜动脉重构的话，我会观察到血管的分支数。几年前，我写了一篇名为“眼睛：心脏的窗口”的评论。我应邀写这篇评论是由于我刚才提到的MESA研究，该研究纳入了大约20%的美籍华人，这一研究发现如果视网膜血管有任何早期改变的话，患者不仅仅更容易发生卒中，还更容易发生冠心病。这就是为什么我说眼睛是心脏的窗口。当然，你也可以选择像冠脉钙化评分这样复杂的检测，但是我们不应当忘记，中国人群的动脉钙化比高加索人群更少见。除此之外，亚洲人发生微血管疾病较大血管疾病更为常见。