Retinal and Choroidal Vasculature in Fellow Eyes of Patients With Rhegmatogenous Retinal Detachment Using Optical...

The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare the retinal and choroidal vasculature between healthy subjects and the fellow eyes of patients with rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD).

We recruited patients with unilateral RRD and healthy controls. An ultra-widefield swept-source optical coherence tomography angiography (UWF-SS-OCTA) was applied to measure the retinal and choroidal vessel densities across the entire image and nine quadrants. Additionally, we used ultra-widefield scanning light ophthalmoscopy (UWF-SLO) to capture the fundus lesions in the fellow eye of the patients with RRD.

The study recruited 53 healthy subjects and 42 patients with unilateral RRD. The fellow-eye RRD group had a significantly larger foveal avascular zone (FAZ; P = 0.006) and reduced choroidal thickness (CT) compared to the control group. Furthermore, the fellow-eye RRD group showed significantly lower retinal vessel densities in superficial vascular plexus (SVP; P = 0.024), full retinal layer (P = 0.019), and choroidal parameters, including choroidal vascularity volume (CVV; P = 0.016), choroidal vascularity index (CVI; P = 0.030), and choroidal stromal volume (CSV; P = 0.031). Pigmentary lesions (28.6%), lattice degeneration (16.7%), and retinal hole (4.8%) were found by SLO images. Some cases did not reveal morphological abnormalities in the retina, but choroidal vessel loss was evident on OCTA.

These results suggest the early abnormalities in retinal and choroidal blood perfusion in the fellow-eye RRD group, which may provide potential pathophysiology and clinical applications.

The study underscores the fundus alterations in the fellow eyes of patients with RRD, as detected by OCTA and UWF-SLO.