Abstract
Purpose :
Choroidal neovascularization (CNV) is the main cause of visual loss in highly myopic patients. This study analyzes the ability of optical coherence tomography angiography (OCT-A) to detect the presence of myopic choroidal neovascularization and to describe structural features of myopic CNV on OCT-A.
Methods :
We retrospectively analyzed 23 eyes of 20 subjects affected with CNV secondary to high myopia (>6 Diopters (D) and >26mm of axial length (AL)). All subjects underwent multimodal imaging including multicolor imaging, fluorescein angiography (FA), spectral-domain (SD)-OCT and OCT-A (AngioPlex™, CIRRUS HD-OCT models 5000, Carl Zeiss Meditec, Inc., Dublin, USA). The OCT-A features of CNV were analyzed and correlated with the findings of angiography and SD-OCT.
Results :
The OCT-A revealed in all 23 eyes the CNV as a large hyper-intense vascular anastomotic network. On the basis of OCT-A images, and on the basis of the literature, we proposed two types of denomination to describe myopic CNV characteristics: “interlacing” and “tangled” vascular networks. Fifteen out of 23 eyes were classified as interlacing, and 8 out of 23 eyes were classified as tangled. Twelve out of 15 CNV (80%) classified as interlacing showed activity on both FA and SD-OCT B-scan, whereas 6 out 8 CNV (75%) classified as tangled showed absence of activity.
Conclusions :
OCT-A is a very useful tool in the diagnosis of CNV complicating high myopia. Qualitative evaluation of OCT-A characteristics may allow recognizing different patterns possibly corresponding to different degrees of neovascular activity.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.