Patterns of Fundus Autofluorescence in Eyes with Myopic Atrophy Maculopathy: A Consecutive Case Series Study

ABSTRACT

Purposes: To investigate the patterns of fundus autofluorescence (FAF) in patients with different grades of myopic atrophy maculopathy (MAM).

Methods: Patients with MAM who visited Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center from January 2018 to December 2019 were screened. All patients received comprehensive ophthalmologic examinations as well as FAF imaging. The atrophic severity of each eye was identified based on the META-PM classification system, including no myopic retinal lesions (C0), tessellated fundus only (C1), diffuse chorioretinal atrophy (C2), patchy chorioretinal atrophy (C3), and macular atrophy (C4).

Results: Eighty-nine consecutive patients with 137 affected eyes were included. Four different autofluorescence (AF) patterns were detected: unremarkable AF (48 eyes in C1 and 18 eyes in C2, 48.2%), compound AF (2 eyes in C1 and 12 eyes in C2, 10.2%), patchy AF defect (5 eyes in C2 and 34 eyes in C3, 28.5%), and macular AF defect (18 eyes in C4, 13.1%). Moreover, AF patterns were significantly correlated with age (r = 0.419, P < .001), best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) (r = 0.592, P < .001), axial length (AL) (r = 0.529, P < .001), and subfovial choroidal thickness (SFCT) (r = −0.728, P < .001). In addition, with the help of FAF, 14.3% (5/35) of eyes initially categorized as C2 merely based on color fundus photographs (CFP) should be categorized as C3.

Conclusions: The severity of FAF in eyes with MAM was significantly correlated with myopic characteristics. FAF might be beneficial for detecting unremarkable patchy chorioretinal atrophy on CFP of MAM.

KEYWORDS:

• Myopia
• atrophy
• maculopathy
• fundus autofluorescence

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81570862) and a Guangdong Provincial Science and Technology Grant (2018A0303130293). The sponsor or funding organization had no role in the design or conduct of this research.