Clinical characteristics of high grade foveal hypoplasia

To report clinical characteristics of high grade foveal hypoplasia. Patients with foveal hypoplasia of grade 3 or 4 on spectral domain optical coherence tomography according to a previously published scheme were enrolled. All patients underwent a full ophthalmologic assessment including visual acuity testing, slit lamp biomicroscopy, fundus examination, and evaluation of ocular alignment. The underlying causes of foveal hypoplasia were identified as albinism in five patients and aniridia in six patients. The mean logMAR visual acuity was 0.57 ± 0.24 (range 0.22-1.00) in the right eyes and 0.58 ± 0.21 (range 0.30-1.00) in the left eyes. On fundus examination in patients with albinism, two patients showed marked transparency, one patient showed moderate transparency, and two patients showed minimal transparency. Among six patients with aniridia, five patients showed normal macular pigmentation without macular reflex and one patient showed decreased macular pigmentation with no macular reflex. Patients with high grade macular hypoplasia tended to have poor visual acuities; however, the range of visual acuity was quite variable. Other factors associated with underlying disease could be the reason of this variability. Therefore, careful consideration should be given when assessing visual prognosis in foveal hypoplasia using optical coherence tomography.