Purpose

The aim of the study was the evaluation of the changes characteristic for type 2a idiopathic juxtafoveal retinal telangiectasia in spectral domain optical coherence tomography images.

Material and methods

The study covered 23 eyes with diagnosed idiopathic juxtafoveal retinal telangiectasia of type 2a – 5 men and 7 women. Stage 2 was noticed in 9 eyes, stage 3 in 5 eyes, stage 4 in 8 eyes. Stage 5 was noticed in one eye. All the patients included in the study underwent the macula analysis by SdOCT technique.

Results

Stage 2 was characterized mainly by the occurrence of small hyporeflective microcysts (in 100% of cases), tiny hyperreflective deposits (in 90% of patients), focal retinal photoreceptor layer damage (in 80%) as well as large hyporeflective cysts (70%). Stage 3 in SdOCT scans showed dominating hyperreflective deposits, including both small ones (100%) and less frequent large shaded deposits (71%), and still numerous microcysts (86%) and larger hyporeflective compartments. Stage 4 was characterized by the occurrence of large spreaded areas of fading retinal photoreceptor layer (in 100% of examined eyes), accompanied by retina architecture disorders. We also noticed numerous tiny hyperreflective deposits (100% of examined eyes), as well as large hyperreflective deposits (80%). Microcysts occurred significantly less frequently than in other stages (60%). The average retina thickness in fovea in all eyes irrespective of the stage of disease amounted to 192.13 ± 59.1 µm, on the other hand in the nasal and temporal parts of fovea 202.43 ± 37.75 µm and 262.7 ± 41.31 µm respectively (p< 0.05).

Conclusions

Thanks to its high resolution, SdOCT examination depicts changes in retina in the course of idiopathic juxtafoveal telangiectasia in great detail. Our study shows certain permanent changes occurring in this disease, characteristic to subsequent stages which allow to make a highly probable diagnosis before fluorescein angiography is carried out.