ASSOCIATION BETWEEN CHOROIDAL CHARACTERISTICS AND SYSTEMIC SEVERITY IN AMYLOIDOSIS

Area of Science:

• Ophthalmology
• Medical Imaging
• Rheumatology

Background:

• Ocular amyloidosis is a rare condition.
• Multimodal imaging offers insights into ocular structures.

Purpose of the Study:

• Describe choroidal features in ocular amyloidosis using multimodal imaging.
• Correlate ocular findings with systemic amyloidosis severity.
• Develop a choroidal grading system for ocular amyloidosis.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective review of eleven patients with systemic amyloidosis.
• Utilized enhanced depth imaging optical coherence tomography (EDI-OCT) and indocyanine green angiography (ICGA).
• Assigned choroidal severity grades and correlated with systemic disease scores.

Main Results:

• ICGA showed late-stage hyperfluorescent spots in all patients.
• EDI-OCT revealed progressive choroidal changes: Grade 1 (choriocapillaris/Sattler's layer foci), Grade 2 (Sattler's layer loss), Grade 3 (Haller's layer hyperreflectivity).
• Choroidal grading scores significantly correlated with systemic amyloidosis severity (P = 0.0014, ρ = 0.83).

Conclusions:

• Multimodal imaging reveals characteristic choroidal changes in ocular amyloidosis.
• Choroidal features may serve as a valuable biomarker for systemic amyloidosis.
• A novel choroidal grading system aids in assessing disease severity.