ICG Angiography as an Adjunct to Fluorescein Angiography for Visudyne Therapy of AMD

Abstract

Abstract: : Purpose: to study the diagnostic benefit of indocyanine green (ICG) angiography as a guide to Visudyne therapy of choroidal neovascularization (CNV) of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) Methods: Eleven patients treated with Visudyne therapy for mainly classic subfoveal CNV in AMD were evaluated diagnostically before Visudyne therapy with both ICG and fluorescein angiography with the Heidelberg Retinal Angiograph according to a standard protocol. The greatest linear diameter (GLD) of the lesion was measured using both the fluorescein (FA) and the ICG angiogram in the late phase of each study. Measurements were made independently of each angiogram in a masked fashion by a single observer (AFC). Results: The ICG measurements of greatest linear diameter of the CNV were highly correlated with the fluorescein measurements of the GLD of the CNV to be treated. The Pearson correlation was 0.993 which was significant at the .01 level.The choroid in the ICG studies showed evidence of a possible vascular "steal' phenomenon. Conclusion: ICG Angiography is undervalued as an important diagnostic adjunct in the evaluation of CNV under consideration for photodynamic therapy with Visudyne. The GLD of CNV measured using ICG is highly correlated with the GLD of CNV measured with fluorescein angiography.

Keywords: 430 imaging/image analysis: clinical • 346 choroid: neovascularization • 308 age-related macular degeneration