Abstract
Purpose: :
To investigate the changes of cone distribution after the laser retinal injury by high-resolution retinal images with the adaptive optics (AO) fundus camera and the fourier-domain OCT (FDOCT).
Methods: :
A 44-year-old man who worked with titanium:sapphire laser (800nm) and has complained of visual disturbance in his right eye was examined. High-resolution retinal images with AO fundus camera and FDOCT were obtained in addition to the conventional ophthalmologic examinations. The images were obtained one week, six months and one year after injury.
Results: :
Visual acuity one week after injury was RE: 20/50 and LE: 20/20. With ophthalmoscopy, fundus appeared normal in both eyes. Relative dark spot was identified below the fixation point by Amsler test only in the right eye. FDOCT demonstrated that the disturbance of the photoreceptor inner segment (IS) and outer segment (OS) junction(IS/OS)and OS layer about 500 um in the right eye and 150 um in the left eye on the horizontal scan. The AO image showed a dark area, i.e. an absence of cone mosaic at the fovea around the fixation point in both eyes and the area was larger in the right eye than in the left eye. The dark area was composed of line-shaped lesions. One year after the initial examination, the shape of lesions in AO image changed slightly from line to oval although the area did not change. The visual acuity slightly decreased to RE: 20/66 and LE: 20/25.
Conclusions: :
The dark area in AO image represents the damage of photoreceptor OS as revealed by FDOCT. The change of lesions in the dark area in AO suggests that a remodeling of OS occurs with time after laser retinal injury.
Keywords: imaging methods (CT, FA, ICG, MRI, OCT, RTA, SLO, ultrasound) • imaging/image analysis: clinical • photoreceptors