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Case Reports
. 2022 Jul 14;22(1):303.
doi: 10.1186/s12886-022-02517-5.

Branch retinal artery occlusion caught in the act by an optical coherence tomography angiography image: case report

Fabio Scarinci  1 , Andrea Cacciamani  2 , Guido Ripandelli  2 , Mariacristina Parravano  2
Affiliations
Case Reports

Branch retinal artery occlusion caught in the act by an optical coherence tomography angiography image: case report

Fabio Scarinci et al. BMC Ophthalmol. .

Abstract

Background: Retinal artery occlusion is a vascular entity caused by the temporary blockage of retinal arterioles.

Case presentation: We present the case of a 57-year-old woman a partial visual loss in the right eye due to a cilioretinal artery occlusion. Ophthalmoscopy revealed a focal area of retinal whitening superior to the optic nerve in the right eye, while the left eye was within the limit. Retinal imaging, in particular optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA), showed a capillary drop out of the superficial capillary plexus and the corresponding b-scan showed a round hyporeflective grey dot (optical empty) corresponding to the dark grey spot on the enface view at the level of the retinal whitening area.

Conclusion: Although the images did not allow the differentiation between vasospasm or retinal emboli, the OCTA imaging might help to identify and to caught in the act the specific region causing the retinal impairment. Also, the possible formation of small microcavity should be considered in case with branch retinal artery occlusion. The use of this new imaging technology might help to evaluate the efficacy of the therapy in vivo.

Keywords: Case report; Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA); Retinal artery occlusion; Spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT).

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Conflict of interest statement

Scarinci, Cacciamani and Ripandelli report no proprietary or financial interest to disclose.

Parravano reports personal fees from Allergan, from Bayer, and from Novartis outside the submitted work. The remaining authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Superiorly to the optic nerve, the ischemic lesion showing corresponding inner nuclear, inner plexiform, ganglion cell, and retinal nerve fibre layer on spectral domain optical coherence tomography (A). Four weeks after initial presentation affected layers revealed thinning and the inner nuclear layer is only partially identifiable (B)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Portion of the colour fundus image of the right eye revealing one retinal whitish lesion (A), which was resolved after 4 weeks (B). The optical coherence tomography angiography (C) showed a capillary drop out at the level of the superficial capillary plexus, which was partially recovered at 4 weeks (D). At baseline, on the enface slab (E), the greyish area, encompassed between the two large vessel, displayed the dark dot (green circle). On the structural B-scan (F), this corresponded to the small hyporeflective dot within the hyperreflectivity band in the inner retina layers. At the follow up visit, in the corresponding area, only a thinning of the retinal nerve fibre layer is present (G and H)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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