Abstract
Purpose :
Good retinal sensitivity (RS) in the macula is important to maintain quality of vision in patients with idiopathic epiretinal membrane (ERM) after surgical treatment. In this study, we investigated whether preoperative macular vessel density (VD) was associated with postoperative macular RS among patients with ERM.
Methods :
The subjects were 20 eyes of 20 patients with ERM who underwent 27 gauge microincision vitrectomy (MIVS) at Tohoku University Hospital (age: 68.5 ± 9.8 years old; 10 males, 10 females). Among them, internal limiting membrane (ILM) peeling was performed in all cases, and cataract surgery was performed in 18 cases. RS was measured with microperimetry (MP-3; NIDEK) at twelve points in the central area of the macula (2 degrees between each point) covering the same area as the 5 macular sectors in the Early Treatment for Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS) (center; [1-mm diameter] and 4 parafoveal sectors (i.e., superior, inferior, nasal, and temporal). VD was also measured with SD-OCT (RS 3000; NIDEK) in the five ETDRS sectors. RS and VD were measured before and 6 months (6M) after surgery. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used for group comparisons, and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was used to evaluate the association between RS at 6M after surgery and preoperative VD.
Results :
RS in the 12 central points was significantly improved after surgery (preoperative: 24.2±2.6 dB, 6M: 25.6±1.7 dB, P =0.007). VD was significantly increased in the 4 parafoveal sectors in the superficial macula (superior and nasal: P < 0.001, inferior and temporal: P = 0.01) and deep macula (superior, nasal, and inferior: P < 0.001, temporal: P = 0.006) layers, but not in the central sector (superficial: P = 0.57, deep: P = 0.65). RS at 6M after surgery showed a positive correlation with preoperative superficial-macular VD in the superior and temporal sectors (superior: r = 0.54, P = 0.01, temporal: r = 0.58, P = 0.007) and preoperative deep-macular VD in the temporal sector (r = 0.56, P = 0.01).
Conclusions :
RS in patients with ERM after MIVS with ILM peeling was significantly correlated to preoperative VD in the parafoveal sectors, and higher preoperative VD contributed to better postoperative RS. Preoperative macular VD might therefore be a useful predictive marker of postoperative RS in ERM patients.
This abstract was presented at the 2019 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Vancouver, Canada, April 28 - May 2, 2019.