Purpose
To investigate the ability of MultiColor imaging to evaluate geographic atrophy (GA) due to age-related macular degeneration.
Methods
Twenty-two consecutive patients with GA underwent MultiColor imaging, color fundus photography (CFP), blue light fundus autofluorescence (FAF) (excitation = 488 nm; emission > 500 nm), near-infrared fundus autofluorescence (NIR-FAF) (excitation = 787 nm; emission > 800 nm), and spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) (Spectralis HRA + OCT; Heidelberg Engineering. Two readers independently made manually two measures at two different times of the size (area)and the width of GA (largest horizontal diameter through the fovea), and evaluated the foveal involvement in each exam.
Results
A total of 32 eyes (22 patients; 15 women, 7 men, mean age 79.2±8 years) with GA were included. Interindividual agreement according to the evaluation of the size and width of GA was high for all the exams. MultiColor and FAF showed the greatest interobserver agreement for GA area measure (ICC = 0,99, 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.98-0.99; ICC = 0,998, 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.996-0.999, respectively). The inter class correlation was equivalent between MutiColor, CFP and SD-OCT images in the evaluation of the width of GA on simultaneous SD-OCT scan passing through the fovea (ICC = 0,94, 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.88-0.9). SD-OCT showed the highest intergrader agreement of foveal involvement (k = 1) followed by MultiColor (k = 0,87).
Conclusions
All the modalities were reliable for measuring GA area and evaluating the presence of foveal sparing. MultiColor is an excellent imaging modality for the detection of foveal sparing and is very appropriate to the measure of GA area and width.
Keywords: 688 retina •
412 age-related macular degeneration •
550 imaging/image analysis: clinical