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. 2014 Jul;98(7):946-50.
doi: 10.1136/bjophthalmol-2013-304082. Epub 2014 Feb 13.

Macular abnormalities in Italian patients with retinitis pigmentosa

Francesco Testa  1 , Settimio Rossi  1 , Raffaella Colucci  1 , Beatrice Gallo  1 , Valentina Di Iorio  1 , Michele della Corte  1 , Claudio Azzolini  1 , Paolo Melillo  2 , Francesca Simonelli  1
Affiliations
Free PMC article

Macular abnormalities in Italian patients with retinitis pigmentosa

Francesco Testa et al. Br J Ophthalmol. 2014 Jul.
Free PMC article

Abstract

Aim: To investigate the prevalence of macular abnormalities in a large Caucasian cohort of patients affected by retinitis pigmentosa (RP).

Methods: A retrospective study was performed by reviewing the medical records and optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans in a cohort of 581 RP patients in order to assess the presence of macular abnormalities -that is, cystoid macular oedema (CMO), epiretinal membrane (ERM), vitreo-macular traction syndrome, and macular hole.

Results: Macular abnormalities were observed in 524 (45.1%) out of the 1161 examined eyes. The most frequent abnormality was CMO, observed in 237 eyes (20.4%) from 133 patients (22.9%), followed by ERM, assessed in 181 eyes (15.6%) from 115 patients (19.8%). Moreover, vitreo-retinal abnormalities were significantly (p<0.05) associated with older age, cataract surgery, or cataract. CMO appeared to be significantly (p<0.05) associated with female gender, autosomic dominant inheritance pattern, and cataract.

Conclusions: Macular abnormalities are more frequent in RP compared to the general population. For that reason, screening RP patients with OCT is highly recommended to follow-up the patients, evaluate the natural history of disease, and identify those patients who could benefit from current or innovative therapeutic strategies.

Keywords: Diagnostic tests/Investigation; Dystrophy; Epidemiology; Macula; Retina.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Distribution of macular abnormalities in the study cohort of patients with retinitis pigmentosa.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Distribution of macular abnormalities in the study cohort of patients with retinitis pigmentosa stratified by (A) gender; (B) inheritance pattern; and (C) lens appearance. CMO, cystoid macular oedema; ERM, epiretinal membrane; FTMH, full thickness macular hole; LMH, lamellar macular hole; TMO, tractional macular oedema; VMT, vitreomacular traction syndrome.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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