Visualisation of peripheral retinal degenerations and anomalies with ocular imaging

Certain peripheral retinal degenerations pose a significant risk to vision and require prompt detection and management. Other historically "benign" peripheral lesions are being recognised as clinically significant due to their associations with ocular and systemic disorders. Assessment and documentation of these entities however can be difficult due to challenges in visualisation of the peripheral retina. This review addresses this by providing a series of clinical examples of these entities visualised with a variety of ocular imaging technologies.

A literature search was performed in Embase, Medline, and Google Scholar. We identified and analysed all papers referring to peripheral retinal degenerations and the peripheral retina, as well as reference lists of retrieved articles until August 2019.

Using ocular imaging technologies including ultra-widefield imaging and peripheral optical coherence tomography, we comprehensively describe current evidence and knowledge of a number of peripheral retinal degenerations and anomalies including microcystoid, pavingstone, lattice, snail track, snowflake and reticular pigmentary degenerations, peripheral drusen, white without pressure, retinal holes and vitreoretinal tufts. A summary of these entities is also provided as a short and easily interpretable chairside guide to facilitate the translation of this evidence base into clinical practice.

While ocular technologies are useful in visualising peripheral retinal degenerations, the current evidence is fragmented throughout the literature and there is a paucity of information on imaging of "benign" peripheral lesions. This review facilitates a multimodal imaging approach to evaluating peripheral lesions.