Clinical characteristics of retinal arterial macroaneurysms and prognosis of different interventions

To estimate the clinical characteristics of retinal arterial macroaneurysms (RAM) and evaluate the prognosis of different interventions.

This study is a meta-analysis. The databases PubMed, EMBASE, and Ovid from inception to January 2021 were searched to identify the relevant studies. R software version 3.6.3 was used to perform the statistical analyses. Results in proportion with 95% confidence interval were calculated by means of Freeman-Tukey variant of arcsine square transformation.

Sixty-nine studies involving 1332 patients were finally included. The pooling results indicated that 91% (95% CI [88 ~ 94%]) of the RAM patients were over sixty, 73% (95% CI [68 ~ 77%]) were female, and 73% (95% CI [66 ~ 79%]) have hypertension. By observation, the RAM closure rate was 64% (95% CI [39 ~ 86%]), the visual acuity (VA) improved in 55% (95% CI [40 ~ 71%]) of the patients, and the VA of 64% (95% CI [54 ~ 74%]) hemorrhagic versus 27% (95% CI [15 ~ 41%]) exudative patients improved significantly. By laser, the closure rate was 96% (95% CI [87 ~ 100%]), the VA improved in 73% (95% CI [65 ~ 80%]) of the patients, and the VA of 66% (95% CI [47 ~ 84%]) hemorrhagic versus 35% (95% CI [23 ~ 47%]) exudative patients improved significantly. By anti-VEGF, the closure rate was 98% (95% CI [93 ~ 100%]), the VA improved in 90% (95% CI [74 ~ 100%]) of the patients, and the VA of 58% (95% CI [18 ~ 94%]) hemorrhagic versus 67% (95% CI [31 ~ 96%]) exudative patients improved significantly.

RAM are most commonly seen in the elderly with a marked female predominance and a strong association with hypertension. Patients receiving laser or anti-VEGF treatments get higher closure rate and better visual prognosis than those with observation alone. Hemorrhagic RAM have a better visual prognosis by observation or laser treatment, while exudative RAM have a better visual prognosis by anti-VEGF treatment.