Objective To observe the characteristics of multiple evanescent white dot syndrome (MEWDS) with modern multimodal imaging modalities. Methods This was a retrospective case study. Eleven patients (11 eyes) diagnosed with MEWDS were enrolled. There were 10 females and 1 male, mean age was 27.6 years (range 15-41 years). The period between disease onset and visiting to the hospital was between 2 to 13 days, the average time was 4.7 days. All the patients underwent examinations of best corrected visual acuity, slit-lamp biomicroscope, indirect ophthalmoscope, fundus color photography, fundus autofluorescence (FAF), fundus fluorescein angiography (FFA), indocyanine green angiography (ICGA) and spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT). The mean follow up duration was 3.2 months. The imaging characteristics were compared. Results Fundus color photography showed foveal orange-red granularity in all eyes. FAF showed strong autofluorescence with a vague boundary. FFA showed a variable number of highly fluorescent fine needle-like dots arranged in a ring in the early stage, and fluorescence remained in the late stage. ICGA showed advanced lesions of vague boundary merged into a large plaque of deep retinal hypofluorescence. SD-OCT showed the hyperreflectant material deposit over the retinal pigment epithelium and extending anteriorly through the interdigitation zone, ellipsoid layer, and toward the external limiting membrane. At the site of extrafoveal lesions, SD-OCT revealed the presence of discontinuities or disruptions centered on the ellipsoid zone to include the interdigitation. Conclusions In MEWDS patients, fundus photography showed foveal orange-red granularity; FFA showed early fluorescent dots distributed in a ring pattern; ICGA showed hypofluorescent lesions in the later stage; SD-OCT showed disruption of the interdigitation zone and ellipsoid zone and accumulations of hyperreflective material that was of variable size and shape; FAF showed strong autofluoresce areas that correlated to spots observed with FFA and ICGA.
Paediatric retinal disease is the most important part of paediatric ophthalmology. It usually manifests as leukocoria or yellow pupil, typically in retinopathy of prematurity, familial exudative vitreoretinopathy, persistent hyperplastic primary vitreous, Coats disease and retinoblastoma. It also can be manifested as nystamus poor visual fixation or progressive worsening of visual function, typically in Leber congenital amaurosis, Stargardt disease, Best disease and cone and rod dystrophy. Paediatric retinal diseases can be roughly divided into acquired, hereditary and congenital developmental abnormalities. With the development of gene and stem cell technologies, the advent of new medicine, equipments and new techniques, the concept of diagnosis and treatment in paediatric retinal diseases is also changing. In China, the level is improving progressively in both clinical and research areas of paediatric retinal diseases.
Ultra-wide-field fluorescein angiography (UWFA) can obtain very wide retinal images (up to 200°), and is a very helpful tool to detect peripheral retinal lesions which cannot be found by other imaging methods. Analyzing the characteristics of the UWFA images may improve our understanding, treatment outcomes and management strategies of ocular fundus diseases. However this technology is still in its premature stage, there is still a lot of work to be done to improve its clinical application and study the characteristics and clinical meanings of these peripheral retinal lesions.
Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) is a new and noninvasive imaging technique that generates real-time blood flow pattern on chorioretinal vasculature. In order to apply this novel technology in the practice to diagnose and treat ocular fundus diseases, we need to further strengthen the quality of OCTA image acquisition and reporting specifications. We need to understand its technical principle, and multiple factors affecting the OCTA image acquisition and interpretation. Furthermore, In the process of image acquisition, as well as analysis and interpretation, we need to pay attention to the stratification, interpretation of blood flow signals and identification of artifacts of OCTA images.
Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) is a new diagnostic technique in recent years based on the optical coherence tomography. It is one of the fastest developing imaging examinations in ophthalmology. Compared with the classic diagnostic methods of fundus fluorescein angiography and indocyanine green angiography, OCTA show the ability to reveal blood flow non-invasively. With the development of modern medical detection technology, the requirement for ophthalmic diagnosis is raised, and many new measurement methods begin to apply in research and clinical, which makes the detection methods in the field of ophthalmology more accurate and comfortable. OCTA is a novel and noninvasive flow imaging technique, and it has the advantages of high resolution, fast scanning, as w ell as quantifying blood flow. Meanwhile, this technique can not only qualitatively analyze the shape of ocular blood vessels, but also be able to measure the ocular blood vessels and blood flow non-invasively, as well as to assess the depth of lesions. At present, with a wide clinical application in ophthalmology, OCTA still has its own superiority and weakness, but with the development of technology. It is believed that the OCTA will be expected to replace the relevant invasive examination methods and become a new tool for ophthalmic imaging.
Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) is a new and non-invasive imaging technique that is able to detect blood flow signal in the retina and the choroid within seconds. OCTA is different from the traditional angiography methods. The major advantages of OCTA are that it can observe blood flow signal in different layers of the retina and the choroid without injecting any dye, provide blood flow information that traditional angiography cannot provide, and enrich pathophysiological knowledge of the retinal and choroidal vascular diseases., which help us to make an accurate diagnosis and efficient evaluation of these diseases. However there is a large upgrade potential either on OCTA technique itself or on clinical application of OCTA. We need to fully understand the advantage and disadvantage, and differences of OCTA and traditional angiography. We also need to know how to interpret the result of OCTA. With that we could make a fast diagnosis in a non-invasive way and improve our knowledge of the retinal and choroidal vascular diseases.
Autofluorescence is produced by lipofuscin in retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells which is induced by exciting light and enables the visualization of lipofuscin changes in the RPE cells, thus showing the function of RPE and photoreceptor cells. Fundus autofluorescence (FAF) imaging is a non-invasive imaging technique providing information of RPE and photoreceptor cells, which is not obtainable with other imaging modalities. The scope of applications includes identification of diseased RPE in retinal diseases, elucidating pathophysiological mechanisms, estimating disease progression and prognosis, guiding treatment protocols. Common fundus diseases have different pathological types, levels and causes, so they can cause various damages of RPE and photoreceptor cells which induce complicated FAF. It is worth to further observing and investigating the common retinal diseases' FAF characteristics and clinical applications.
ObjectiveTo observe the characteristic of optical coherence tomography (OCT) and subfoveal choroidal thickness(SFCT) in patients with multiple evanescent white dot syndrome (MEWDS). MethodsThe clinical data of 10 patients (10 eyes)with MEWDS were included in the study. 10 normal subjects with matched age, gender and ocular refractive status was selected as control. The patients including 9 females (9 eyes) and 1 male (1 eye), with the average age of (27±8) years. The onset time ranged from 5 to 14 days. The patients were in acute phase if it was in 2 weeks after onset, or convalescent phase if onset was 8 weeks ago. The corrected vision, slit lamp biomicroscopy, ophthalmoscope, fundus photography, fundus fluorescein angiography, indocyanine green angiography and optical coherence tomography (OCT) were performed alone or combined in all patients. The SFCT between the acute and convalescent phases were measured using enhanced depth imaging OCT. The average follow-up was 5 months. The OCT characteristics of affected eyes between acute and convalescent phase were compared. The SFCT of the affected eyes and fellow eye were compared. ResultsThe foveal inner segment-outer segment (IS/OS) was disrupted, thin, irregular in the acute phase, and restored in the convalescent phase. The SFCT of patients in the acute phase was (239±140.7) μm, in the convalescent phase was (189.9±115.6) μm. The SFCT in the acute phase was more thicker than the convalescent phase (t=5.287, P < 0.05). The SFCT of fellow eyes in the acute phase was (214.6±127.2) μm, in the convalescent phase was (186.5±108.6) μm, the difference was significant(t=3.553, P < 0.05).The SFCT in the control subject was (155.5±83.5) μm. The SFCT in the acute phase was thicker than the control(Z=-2.117, P < 0.05). ConclusionsIn the acute phase of MEWDS, the foveal IS/OS was disrupted, thin and irregular in OCT scan. The choroid is thicker in the acute phase than in the convalescent phase in both eyes, and thicker than controls.
With the rapid development of ophthalmic imaging methods, there are many ways of examination in the diagnosis and treatment of fundus diseases, such as FFA, ICGA, FAF, OCT and emerging blood vessels by OCT angiography in recent years. Multi-model image can understand the changes of anatomical structure and function of different levels and parts of the fundus from different aspects. A variety of imaging examinations are combined and complemented each other, which makes us have a further understanding of the location and pathological changes of many fundus diseases. But at the same time, the emergence of multi-modal images also brings a series of problems. How to standardize the use of multi-modal imaging platform to better serve the clinic is a problem that ophthalmologists need to understand.
Ultra-wide-field fluorescein angiography (UWFA) is a novel breakthrough in ocular fundus imaging technology, which can capture a single, high-resolution, 200° wide image of the ocular fundus that traditional fluorescein angiography cannot reach. This technology has important impacts on the screening, diagnosis, staging, treatment and follow-up of vascular diseases involving peripheral retina (such as diabetic retinopathy, age-related macular degeneration, retinal vein occlusion, uveitis and so on).