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Novel OCT finding common but not indicative of need for treatment
Am J Ophthalmol. 2010;150(2):211-217.e1.
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Retinal pseudocysts, appearing as optically empty spaces frequently located in the inner nuclear layer, may be present in one-quarter of eyes with age-related geographic atrophy due to age-related macular degeneration, but their presence may not indicate the presence of neovascularization in need of treatment.
In a consecutive series of 88 eyes of 68 patients with geographic atrophy that were studied with spectral-domain optical coherence tomography, retinal pseudocysts were seen in 24 eyes. However, fluorescein angiography performed in 71 of the eyes ruled out choroidal neovascularization.
"OCT imaging of exudation attributable to CNV differs significantly from the images obtained in the present study, because in CNV, exudation usually appears as local retinal thickening combined with irregularity of the [retinal pigment epithelium]-photoreceptor layer. On the contrary, the eyes described here exhibited no thickening in the areas with pseudocysts compared to the adjacent areas," the study authors wrote.
OCT images displayed distinct patterns of pseudocysts — unique vs. multiple, superficial vs. deep — indicating that the findings were not imaging artifacts. According to the study authors, artifacts would have displayed similar characteristics in all cases.
In the study, no correlation was found with patient age or gender and presence of pseudocysts. Additionally, there was no apparent correlation between patterns of atrophy and presence of pseudocysts.