CONTRAST SENSITIVITY FUNCTION CORRELATES WITH OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY FINDINGS IN MACULAR TELANGIECTASIA TYPE 2

Area of Science:

• Ophthalmology
• Retinal Imaging
• Visual Function Testing

Background:

• Macular Telangiectasia type 2 (MacTel) is a degenerative retinal disease affecting central vision.
• Assessing visual function and structural changes is crucial for understanding MacTel progression.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate quantitative contrast sensitivity function (qCSF) in MacTel eyes.
• To correlate qCSF deficits with optical coherence tomography (OCT) biomarkers in MacTel.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional study compared 49 MacTel eyes with 277 controls using qCSF and multimodal retinal imaging.
• qCSF metrics included area under the curve (AULCSF), contrast acuity (CA), and contrast sensitivity (CS) thresholds.
• OCT biomarkers assessed included ellipsoid zone discontinuity, outer retinal changes, and macular neovascularization (MNV).

Main Results:

• MacTel eyes exhibited significantly lower CS across all qCSF metrics compared to controls (p<0.001).
• Reduced CS was significantly associated with OCT structural biomarkers, excluding MNV (p<0.05).

Conclusions:

• qCSF testing effectively identifies reduced contrast sensitivity in MacTel patients.
• qCSF deficits in MacTel are linked to early structural alterations observed on OCT.