En-face widefield optical coherence tomography angiography for understanding vascular networks changes in two cases of acute retinal necrosis

Mami Tomita; Mizuki Tagami; Norihiko Misawa; Atsushi Sakai; Yusuke Haruna; Shigeru Honda

doi:10.1186/s12348-023-00331-8

En-face widefield optical coherence tomography angiography for understanding vascular networks changes in two cases of acute retinal necrosis

J Ophthalmic Inflamm Infect. 2023 Mar 7;13(1):9. doi: 10.1186/s12348-023-00331-8.

Authors

Mami Tomita¹, Mizuki Tagami², Norihiko Misawa¹, Atsushi Sakai¹, Yusuke Haruna¹, Shigeru Honda¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka Metropolitan University, 1-5-7 Asahimachi, Abeno-ku, Osaka-shi, 545-8586, Japan.
² Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka Metropolitan University, 1-5-7 Asahimachi, Abeno-ku, Osaka-shi, 545-8586, Japan. mizuki1979feb@yahoo.co.jp.

Abstract

Purpose: The present study assesses the utility of en-face widefield optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) imaging for evaluating the retinal vascular network during the course of treatment in acute retinal necrosis(ARN).

Observations: OCTA images of two cases of acute retinal necrosis were analyzed. Case 1 was a 15-year-old male with visual crowding in his right eye who had best-corrected visual acuity of 16/20 and intraocular pressure of 25 mmHg in his right eye on initial evaluation. Case 2 was a 57-year-old male with visual crowding in his left eye who had best-corrected visual acuity of 20/20 in his left eye on initial examination and intraocular pressure of 19.3 mmHg. In both patients, dynamic changes could be tracked by en-face ultra-widefield OCTA imaging before and up to 1 year after surgical treatment. The images showed arteriovenous anastomosis and the nonperfused area on the surface of the retina.

Conclusions and importance: En-face widefield OCTA is useful for monitoring the structure of retinal vessels over time in acute retinal necrosis. Wide-angle OCTA is used to non-invasively examine retinal vascular dynamic changes in ARN. OCTA artifacts due to intraocular inflammation appeared, making interpretation difficult. These will remain as issues in the future. It seems difficult for a while to completely replace FA due to the problem of image clarity.

Keywords: Acute retinal necrosis; En-face imaging; Widefield optical coherence tomography angiography.