Abstract
Purpose :
Several variants in genes involved in the complement system have been described to be associated with chronic central serous chorioretinopathy (cCSC). Previously, systemic activation of the complement system in age-related macular degeneration, a disease that shows clinical features that overlap with CSC, has been found. With this case-control study, we assessed whether there is a systemic activation of the complement system in patients with cCSC.
Methods :
A prospective cohort study of 77 typical cCSC patients and 31 age- and gender-matched controls without ophthalmological history. Either in serum or plasma, hemolytic complement assays (AP50, CP50, and LP50), complement components C3, C4, CFB, CFH, and CFI and C3d, C5a and C5b-C9 (activation products), and the C3d/C3 ratio were analysed. A correction for possible effects of gender, age, body mass index, and smoking status was performed.
Results :
Before performing the Bonferroni correction for multiple testing, activation of the classical complement pathway (p=0.049) and C5a (p=0.012) were associated with cCSC. However, after performing this correction, none of the tested variables proved to be statistically significantly different between the included groups.
Conclusions :
Despite the available literature regarding a possible relationship between cCSC and variants in genes involved in the complement system, the current study did not find evidence that cCSC is associated with systemic complement activation.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.