Optical coherence tomography angiography can uniquely identify changes in peripapillary PCD in glaucoma patients. Optical coherence tomography angiography may offer insights into the pathophysiology of glaucomatous damage and risk factors for disease progression.
Purpose
To investigate the incidence of reticular macular disease (RMD), a subphenotype of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), in multilobular geographic atrophy (GA) and its relation to GA progression.
Methods
157 eyes of 99 subjects with AMD, primary GA, and good-quality autofluorescence (AF) and/or infrared (IR) images were classified into unilobular GA (1 lesion) or multilobular GA (>= 2 distinct and/or coalescent lesions). 34 subjects (50 eyes) had serial imaging. We determined the spatiotemporal relationships of RMD to GA and GA progression rates in 5 macular fields.
Results
144/157 (91.7%) eyes had multilobular GA, 95.8% of which exhibited RMD. In subjects with serial imaging, the mean GA growth rate significantly differed between the unilobular and multilobular groups (0.40 mm2 /yrvs. 1.30 mm2 /yr, p< 0.001). Of the macular fields in these eyes, 77.1% of fields with RMD at baseline showed subsequent GA progression, while 53.4% of fields without RMD showed progression (p <0.001). Percentage of fields with RMD significantly correlated with GA progression rate(p=0.01).
Conclusion
AF and IR imaging demonstrates that RMD is nearly always present with multilobular GA in AMD. Further, GA lobules frequently develop in areas of RMD, suggesting progression of a single underlying disease process.
The high correlation between the presence of RPD (also known as SDD or RMD) and the presence of GA, and the expansion of GA into areas with these lesions suggest that they are an early manifestation of the process leading to GA.
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