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Updated: Nov 25, 2025
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Published on: November 6, 2017
QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF LONGITUDINAL CHANGES IN MULTIMODAL IMAGING OF LATE-ONSET RETINAL DEGENERATION
Elliott K Vanderford1, Tharindu De Silva, Dominique Noriega
1Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Applications, National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.
Purpose:
To quantitatively analyze clinically relevant features on longitudinal multimodal imaging of late-onset retinal degeneration to characterize disease progression.
Methods:
Fundus autofluorescence (FAF), infrared reflectance, and optical coherence tomography imaging of 4 patients with late-onset retinal degeneration were acquired over 3 to 15 years (20 visits total). Corresponding regions of interest were analyzed on FAF (reticular pseudodrusen [RPD], "speckled FAF," and chorioretinal atrophy) and infrared reflectance (hyporeflective RPD and target RPD) using quantitative measurements, including contour area, distance to fovea, contour overlap, retinal thickness, and texture features.
Results:
Cross-sectional analysis revealed a moderate correlation (RPD FAF ∩ RPD infrared reflectance = 63%) between contour area across modalities. Quantification of retinal thickness and texture analysis of areas contoured on FAF objectively differentiated the contour types. A longitudinal analysis of aligned images demonstrates that the contoured region of atrophy both encroaches toward the fovea and grows monotonically with a rate of 0.531 mm/year to 1.969 mm/year (square root of area, n = 5 eyes). A retrospective analysis of precursor lesions of atrophy reveals quantifiable progression from RPD to speckled FAF to atrophy.
Conclusion:
Image analysis of time points before the development of atrophy reveals consistent patterns over time and space in late-onset retinal degeneration that may provide useful outcomes for this and other degenerative retinal diseases.
