Differentiation of Underlying Pathologies of Macular Edema Using Spectral Domain Optical Coherence Tomography (SD-OCT)

ABSTRACT

Purpose: To describe the morphological characteristics of macular edema (ME) of different origins using spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT).

Methods: This article summarizes and highlights key morphologic findings, based on published articles, describing the characteristic presentations of ME of different origins using SD-OCT. The following pathologies were included: uveitic macular edema, pseudophakic cystoid macular edema (PCME), diabetic macular edema (DME), macular edema secondary to central or branch retinal vein occlusion (CRVO/BRVO), microcystic macular edema (MME), ME associated with epiretinal membrane (ERM), and retinitis pigmentosa (RP).

Conclusions: Macular edema of different origins show characteristic patterns that are often indicative of the underlying cause and pathology. Thus, trained algorithms may in the future be able to automatically differentiate underlying causes and support clinical diagnosis. Knowledge of different appearances support the clinical diagnosis and can lead to improved and more targeted treatment of ME.

Keywords:

• Diabetic macular edema
• macular edema
• optical coherence tomography
• retinal vein occlusion
• uveitic macular edema

Acknowledgments

We want to thank Danielle Cuénoud for English editing and critical review of this paper.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. Marion R Munk is consultant for Zeiss, Bayer and Novartis. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Supplementary Materials

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.