Vascular findings in primarily affected and fellow eyes of middle-aged patients with Coats' disease using multimodal imaging.

Abstract

AIMS:

To investigate the retinal vascular structure and capillary anomalies of affected and fellow eyes of patients with unilateral Coats' disease using multimodal imaging.

METHODS:

Clinical investigation of both eyes of each patient with diagnosed Coats' disease using ultra-widefield (UWF) fundus imaging, including UWF fluorescein angiography (UWFFA), spectral domain optical coherence tomography (OCT) and optical coherence tomography angiography (OCT-A).

RESULTS:

We analysed 38 eyes of 19 patients with unilateral Coats' disease and found that all fellow eyes (19/19; 100%) revealed vascular alterations, detected by UWFFA, predominantly located in the temporal periphery. Thereby, 89% of the fellow eyes (17/19) presented capillary bed abnormalities, that did not exceed the capillary level; 58% (11/19) presented tortuous abnormalities and 26% (5/19) presented microaneurysmatic abnormalities, exceeding the capillary level. If primarily affected eyes presented central Coats' specific vascular abnormalities, fellow eyes revealed tortuous vascular abnormalities twice as often (78% (7/9) vs 40% (4/10); P=0.096). In primarily affected eyes, a tendency towards larger foveal avascular zones was revealed, compared to fellow eyes (0.28±0.16 mm2 vs 0.20±0.10 mm2; P=0.123).

CONCLUSION:

The use of modern multimodal imaging allows the detection of even subtle vascular changes in fellow eyes of patients with Coats' disease. Coats' disease appears to be a bilateral ocular disease with a predominant manifestation in one eye of the affected patients.

• Authors: Claudia Brockmann, Julia Löwen, Shideh Schönfeld, Mirjam Rossel-Zemkouo, Ira Seibel, Sibylle Winterhalter, Bert Müller, Antonia M Joussen
• Journal: The British journal of ophthalmology (Br J Ophthalmol) Vol. 105 Issue 10 Pg. 1444-1453 (10 2021) ISSN: 1468-2079 [Electronic] England
• PMID: 33130555 (Publication Type: Journal Article)
• Copyright: © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.

Topics

• Capillaries (abnormalities)
• Fluorescein Angiography
• Fundus Oculi
• Humans
• Middle Aged
• Multimodal Imaging
• Retinal Telangiectasis (diagnostic imaging)
• Retinal Vessels (diagnostic imaging)
• Retrospective Studies
• Tomography, Optical Coherence
• Vascular Malformations