Morphological features of macular telangiectasia type 2 in Japanese patients

This study aimed to demonstrate the clinical course of Japanese patients with macular telangiectasia type 2 (MacTel-2).

This retrospective observational case series included 16 eyes of 8 Japanese patients (3 men and 5 women) with MacTel-2. The mean age and follow-up duration was 66.9 years and 42.8 months, respectively. Differences in best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), funduscopic macular findings, central macular thickness (CMT), and the length of macular ellipsoid zone (EZ) loss were compared between the initial/baseline and final visits. Optical coherence tomographic changes in CMT by ≥ 20% and in EZ loss by ≥ 20% or ≥ 100 μm were defined as improved or worsened.

Numerical changes in BCVA and EZ loss during follow-up were not statistically significant. However, the mean CMT at baseline, which was lower than that of healthy control eyes (P < 0.001), significantly increased during follow-up (P = 0.041). A certain proportion of eyes showed improvement in several parameters: funduscopic findings (both parafoveal retinal graying and foveal retinal pigment epithelium depigmentation) in 29% of eyes, CMT in 21% of eyes, and EZ loss in 43% of eyes.

The non-negligible proportion of eyes with improved parameters, marked especially by macular EZ loss, suggests that Japanese patients with MacTel-2 have milder clinical features than Caucasian patients reported in the literature.