Abstract
Purpose :
To describe the characteristics of a new disease entity, diabetic retinal pigment epitheliopathy (DRPE), using fundus autofluorescence (FAF) and spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT).
Methods :
In this retrospective study, 17 eyes from 10 proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) patients with granular hypoautofluorescence and/or variable hyperautofluorescence on FAF (DRPE group) and 17 eyes from 10 age- and sex-matched PDR patients without abnormal autofluorescence (PDR group). Eyes with diabetic macular oedema were excluded. Visual acuity (VA), retinal thickness (RT), and choroidal thickness (CT) were compared between the groups.
Results :
Eyes in the DRPE group had worse logMAR VA than eyes in the PDR group (0.369 ± 0.266 vs. 0.185 ± 0.119; P = 0.026). The thickness of the retinal pigment epithelium plus the inner segment/outer segment of the photoreceptors was more reduced in the DRPE group compared with the PDR group (P < 0.001). Moreover, the thickness of outer nuclear layer plus the outer plexiform layer was thinner in the DRPE group than in the PDR (P = 0.013). However, the thickness of the inner retina showed no differences between the two groups. CT was significantly thicker in the DRPE group than in the PDR group (329.00 ± 33.76 vs. 225.62 ± 37.47 µm; P < 0.001).
Conclusions :
Eyes with DRPE showed reduced VA, a thinner outer retina, and thicker choroid in comparison with eyes with PDR. Alterations of autofluorescence on FAF and changes of the outer retinal thickness and CT on SD-OCT can be helpful to differentiate DRPE in PDR patients.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.