[Hereditary macular dystrophies in differential diagnosis of AMD]

The onset of hereditary macular dystrophies may occur at all ages and may be the origin of visual disturbances even after the age of 50 years. During the disease course, many macular dystrophies change their fundus appearance, finally leading to a geographic chorioretinal atrophy making it difficult to distinguish the disease form dry AMD. Furthermore, a macular dystrophy associated CNV may be misleading to the diagnosis of wet AMD. Additional fundus autofluorescence and optical coherence tomography imaging are very valuable for delineating macular dystrophies from AMD. In this paper we provide an overview of the important hereditary macular dystrophies which should be considered as differential diagnoses for AMD.