Retinal Sensitivity In Eyes With Central Serous Chorioretinopathy

Abstract

Purpose: : Eyes with serous retinal detachment (SRD) associated with acute serous chorioretinopathy (CSC) generally possess good visual acuity and fixation of target. With regard to SRD, however, microperimetry often shows substantially decreased retinal sensitivity within the macular area. We hypothesized that this contradiction between good visual acuity and decreased retinal sensitivity originates from the short stimulus duration of 0.2 s, which is often adopted for microperimetry. The current study aimed to measure the retinal sensitivity within the macular area of eyes with acute CSC using short and long stimulus durations (0.2 and 1.0 s, respectively), in order to evaluate the effect of the duration of stimulation on retinal sensitivity in eyes with acute CSC.

Methods: : The retinal function in 20 eyes of 20 patients with acute CSC was examined with the Micro Perimeter 1. A 4-2-staircase strategy with Goldmann III size stimulus was used, and 59 stimulus locations covering the central 10° of the macular area were measured using a stimulus duration of 0.2 and 1.0 s.

Results: : The mean logMAR visual acuity was 0.02 ± 0.02, and the mean fixation within the central 4° of the macular area was 97.6 ± 3.0%. However, the foveal retinal sensitivity substantially decreased but showed no correlation with the height of SRD. The mean retinal sensitivities at the fovea, and within the 4° and 10° fields were 8.4, 11.1, and 14.0 dB, respectively, with the 0.2 s stimulus duration, which significantly improved to 10.8, 13.4, and 15.7 dB, respectively, with the 1.0 s stimulus duration (P < 0.01). The retinal sensitivity significantly improved by using the longer stimulus in both the areas with SRD (11.3 to 13.6 dB) and without SRD (17.2 to 18.5 dB). However, the extent of improvement was significantly higher within the area affected by SRD (P = 0.0073).

Conclusions: : Reduced retinal sensitivity within the area affected with SRD in eyes with acute CSC improved with longer duration of stimulus; however, this effect did not spread to the physiological level. Moreover, other factors may also contribute to the discrepancy noted between good visual acuity and decreased retinal sensitivity that is measured with microperimetry.

Keywords: macula/fovea • perimetry