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24th Annual Meeting of the German Retina Society

German Retina Society

17.06. - 18.06.2011, Aachen

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Hyperreflectivity on spectral domain optical coherence tomography in macular telangiectasia type 2

Meeting Abstract

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  • Sönke Baumüller - Universitäts-Augenklinik Bonn
  • P. Charbel Issa - Universitäts-Augenklinik Bonn; Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology, University of Oxford, UK
  • F.G. Holz - Universitäts-Augenklinik Bonn

German Retina Society. 24th Annual Conference of the German Retina Society. Aachen, 17.-18.06.2011. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2011. Doc11rg50

doi: 10.3205/11rg50, urn:nbn:de:0183-11rg507

This is the English version of the article.
The German version can be found at: http://www.egms.de/de/meetings/rg2011/11rg50.shtml

Published: June 15, 2011

© 2011 Baumüller et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

Outline

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Purpose: To investigate tissue optical properties in retinal layers of patients diagnosed with type 2 idiopathic macular telangiectasia (MacTel type 2) using spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD OCT).

Methods: Forty three patients diagnosed with MacTel type 2 and 15 age-matched controls were enrolled in a cross-sectional case-control study. Tomographic SD-OCT and topographic scanning laser ophthalmoscope (SLO) images were simultaneously recorded (Spectralis HRA+OCT, Heidelberg Engineering, Germany). A low contrast setting was used to enhance the visualization of focal differences in tissue optical properties in the high-amplitude backscatter signal range.

Results: Higher tissue optical properties were detected in the neurosensory retina of MacTel type 2 patients using the SD OCT compared to the control group. This hyperreflectivity was most prominent in the outer plexiform layer, the inner plexiform layer and the nerve fibre layer and focal in the ganglion cell layer, the inner nuclear layer and the outer nuclear layer. The phenomenon was confined to the parafoveolar region. It was present in angiographically apparently unaffected areas. The phenomenon decreased or disappeared after the intravitral injection of ranibizumab in 10 patients.

Conclusions: The SD OCT detected an active disease process before MacTel type 2 manifested by classical angiographic signs, which may help to indentify early disease stages and affected family members. We suggest this phenomenon to represent early edema in the inner retinal layers.