Abstract
Purpose: :
To evaluate the retinal sensitivity of the fellow eye of patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) with or without reticular pseudodrusen.
Methods: :
Patients who had neovascular AMD in one eye were invited to take part in the study. To be included, the best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) of the fellow eye (study eye) were 60 letters or better as measured with ETDRS chart. Microperimetry and fixation analysis were carried with Nidek MP1, Infrared Imaging, Autofluorescein imaging and Optical Coherence Topography were carried out with Heidelberg Spectralis. The fixation stability was calculated and expressed by the bivariate contour ellipse area (BCEA). Reticular pseudodrusen were identified by infrared imaging. Student t-test was used to analyse the data.
Results: :
A total of 50 patients were included in the study. The mean age was 75.34 (SD 6.37) years and the mean BCVA was 76.3 (SD 7.16) letters. Patients were divided into 2 groups based on the whether reticular pseudodrusen (RPD) were present or not in the infra-red images. There were 17 patients in RPD group and 33 patients in the non RPD (NRPD) group. Overall rate of RPD were 34%. The mean age were 74.2 and 77.5 years (p=0.096) in the NRPD group and RPD group respectively, the mean BCVA were 77.2 and 74.4 letters (p=0.176) in the NRPD and RPD respectively, the mean BCEA were 865 and 1456 (p=0.173) in the NRPD and RPD respectively, and mean retinal sensitivity score were 10.96 and 7.00 (p=0.0005) in the NRPD and RPD respectively.
Conclusions: :
In the fellow eye of patients with neovascular AMD, the presence of reticular pseudodrusen is significantly associated with reduction of retinal sensitivity. This finding suggests that patients with reticular pseudodrusen has significant retinal dysfunction over an beyond other neovascular AMD patients.
Keywords: age-related macular degeneration