Abstract
Purpose: :
Choroidal blood flow has been reported to be associated with the development of choroidal neovascularization (CNV). Laser speckle flowgraphy (LSFG) (LSFG-Navi, Softcare, Fukuoka, Japan), which is a new instrument for visualizing and measuring blood flow in ocular fundus, makes it easy to evaluate retinal blood flow and is very suitable for clinical application. We investigated the retinal blood flow at the optic disc and chorioretinal blood flow at the CNV lesion using LSFG before and after intravitreal ranibizumab injection in patients with CNV.
Methods: :
Nine eyes of 9 patients (5 males and 4 females, mean age 69.9±11.2) including 4 eyes with polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy, 3 eyes with myopic CNV, 1 eye with typical age-related macular degeneration and 1 eye with CNV complicated by angioid streaks, were examined for the retinal blood flow at the optic disc and the chorioretinal blood flow at the CNV lesion using LSFG before and 1 month after the intravitreal ranibizumab injection and evaluated by mean blur rate (MBR).
Results: :
After the intravitreal renibizumab injection, the central macular thickness measured by spectral-domain OCT significantly decreased from 368±104µm to 312±50µm (p=0.03). The average MBR of the blood flow in the main vessels at the disc area exhibited no significant difference between before and after the injection (p=0.3). The average MBR of the chorioretinal blood flow at the CNV lesion after the intravitreal ranibizumab injection was significantly reduced to 87.8±12.3% of that before the injection (p=0.03).
Conclusions: :
During the short term follow up, intravitreal ranibizumab injection indicated no significant difference in the retinal blood flow at the disc area, but significant decrease in the chorioretinal blood flow at the CNV lesion using LSFG, which might be a valid measurement to evaluate the effect of treatment for CNV.
Keywords: imaging/image analysis: clinical • choroid: neovascularization • age-related macular degeneration