Abstract
Purpose
To investigate the choroidal vascularity index (CVI) in patients affected by leptochoroid.
Methods
Three distinct age-matched cohorts were collected: patients with reticular pseudodrusen (RPD) secondary to age-related macular degeneration, patients with high-myopia, and healthy controls. CVI was calculated in the subfoveal 6000 μm diameter area.
Results
54 eyes (54 patients) were included (18 eyes in each cohort). No statistical differences were disclosed in terms of age between controls, RPD patients (p = 0.062), and myopic patients (p = 0.070). Total choroidal area showed a different distribution among the 3 cohorts (p < 0.001), due to the reduction of luminal and stromal choroidal area in both RPD and myopic groups in comparison to controls (p < 0.001). Interestingly, CVI showed a different distribution between the 3 cohorts (p < 0.001). In detail, RPD group showed no changes in CVI in comparison to controls (p = 1.000), whereas the myopic group showed a higher CVI in comparison to both RPD group and controls (p < 0.001 in both analyses).
Conclusions
Different changes of the choroidal vascular and stromal components characterize the leptochoroid secondary to RPD eyes and high-myopic eyes. The relative greater impairment of the vascular area in RPD eyes in comparison to myopic eyes could be at the basis of the lower development of RPD in patients with high myopia.
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Funding
GV, SB, and MB: none. KKV: None. JC: Allergan Inc (Irvine, California, USA), Biogen (Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA), Salutaris, OD-OS. RS is a consultant for: Novartis (Basel, Switzerland), and Zeiss (Dublin, USA). EB is a consultant for: Novartis (Basel, Switzerland), and Zeiss (Dublin, USA). FB is a consultant for Alcon (Fort Worth,Texas, USA), Alimera Sciences (Alpharetta, Georgia, USA), Allergan Inc (Irvine, California, USA), Farmila-Thea (Clermont-Ferrand, France), Bayer Shering-Pharma (Berlin, Germany), Bausch And Lomb (Rochester, New York, USA), Genentech (San Francisco, California, USA), Hoffmann-La-Roche (Basel, Switzerland), NovagaliPharma (Évry, France), Novartis (Basel, Switzerland), Sanofi-Aventis (Paris, France), Thrombogenics (Heverlee, Belgium), Zeiss (Dublin, USA). GQ is a consultant for Alimera Sciences (Alpharetta, Georgia, USA), Allergan Inc (Irvine, California, USA), Amgen (Thousand Oaks, USA), Heidelberg (Germany), KBH (Chengdu, China), LEH Pharma (London, UK), Lumithera (Poulsbo, USA), Novartis (Basel, Switzerland), Bayer Shering-Pharma (Berlin, Germany), Sandoz (Berlin, Germany), Sifi (Catania, Italy), Soof-Fidia (Albano, Italy), Zeiss (Dublin, USA).
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RS, EB: research design, data acquisition, and analysis, interpretation of data, drafting the paper, and critical revision of the paper. SB, GV, MB, and KKV: data acquisition and analysis, critical revision of the paper. JC, FB, and GQ: interpretation of data and critical revision of the paper.
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Sacconi, R., Borrelli, E., Balasubramanian, S. et al. Choroidal vascularity index in leptochoroid: A comparative analysis between reticular pseudodrusen and high myopia. Eye 37, 75–81 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41433-021-01889-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41433-021-01889-0
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