Fundus Lesions, Visual Acuity and Symptoms in 80 Patients With Birdshot Chorioretinopathy

Abstract

Abstract: : Purpose: To compare the characteristics of fundus lesions in Birdshot chorioretinopathy with visual acuity and symptoms. Methods: Single center cross sectional study of 80 patients seen between November 2002 and November 2003. Patients were asked specifically about the presence or absence of eights symptoms. Four characteristics of Birdshot lesions including quantity, distribution, morphology and pigmentation were graded by a single masked observer and using standard photographs. Results: There were 29 males and 51 females and the mean age was 55.6 years at the time of the study. All patients were Caucasians. Seventy–eight patients (97.5%) had visual symptoms with a mean of 3.3 ±1.8 symptoms per patients. Seventeen of 18 patients with 1.0 decimal visual acuity both eyes reported symptoms. There was no correlation between visual acuity and number of symptoms. Decreased visual acuity both eyes was only associated with symptoms of blurred vision (P=0.16). Characteristics of Birdshot lesions did not correlate with visual acuity, but increased pigmentation was associated with complaints of vibrating visions (P=0.025) and nyctalopia (P=0.056).Conclusions:Visual symptoms are common, even in patients with a good visual acuity, highlighting the need of surrogate markers to better assess the disease. Visual acuity and symptoms are mostly unrelated to the characteristics of Birdshot lesions.

Keywords: autoimmune disease • retinochoroiditis • imaging/image analysis: clinical