Abstract
Purpose :
To investigate the peripheral retinal vascular staining in anterior and intermediate uveitis using ultra-widefield (UWF) fluorescein angiography (FA), and to analyze the correlation of peripheral vascular change with the inflammation of anterior chamber and vitreous.
Methods :
We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 37 eyes of 22 patients (age: 38.31±16.85) with anterior and intermediate uveitis (anterior uveitis: 7 patients, intermediate uveitis: 15 patients). We examined UWF FA for all patients, and included the patients with initial peripheral retinal vascular staining in UWF FA (without diffuse vasculitis, diffuse capillary leakage, and macular leakage). The eyes were categorized into two groups according to the further treatment after evaluating peripheral vascular staining: no further treatment group (group 1) and further treatment group (group 2). We compared the two groups for initial and final visual acuity, the inflammation of anterior chamber and vitreous, and the improvement of the peripheral fluorescein angiographic staining.
Results :
Of the 22 patients, the number of group 1 was 6 (11 eyes), and the number of group 2 was 16 (26 eyes). In both groups, the visual acuity was significantly improved at final visit (p = 0.037, p = 0.002). The initial anterior chamber inflammation in group 2 was significantly more severe than that in group 1 (p = 0.029), but the initial anterior vitreous inflammation in group 2 was not significantly different from that in group 1 (p = 0.387). In group 1, peripheral vascular staining was improved in 2 eyes (18.2%), and in group 2, peripheral vascular staining was improved in 6 eyes (23.1%) (p = 0.741). The improvement of anterior chamber and vitreous was not correlated with the improvement of peripheral vascular staining, respectively (p = 0.585, p = 0.102). The final visual acuity was not correlated with the improvement of peripheral vascular staining (p = 0.490).
Conclusions :
UWF FA is useful in detecting the peripheral retinal vascular changes, and can provide additional information in managing the uveitis. However, the peripheral vascular staining in UWF FA might not influence the treatment strategies, and it was not correlated with the degree of anterior chamber and vitreous and the final visual acuity.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.