Faculty Bibliography

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE/OBJECTIVE:Aggressive posterior vitreoretinopathy (APVR) manifests with a broad area of retinal avascularity, progressive neovascularization, and/or tractional retinal detachment during the neonatal period. PATIENTS AND METHODS/METHODS:A multicenter, retrospective, observational, consecutive case series study was performed to evaluate the retinal findings and structural retinal outcomes in patients treated for APVR within the first 3 months of life. RESULTS:Three premature neonates with a non-retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) APVR identified during routine ROP screening exams exhibited relatively severe, rapidly progressive retinal vascular abnormalities. Immediate laser photocoagulation of the avascular retina and vitrectomy for traction retinal detachment within several days to weeks improved or stabilized the retinal anatomy in all cases. CONCLUSIONS:This series describes clinical features in APVR in premature infants and suggests that early diagnosis and intervention may mitigate the typical aggressive course and poor prognosis of this condition. [Ophthalmic Surg Lasers Imaging Retina. 2019;50:201-207.].

PURPOSE: The aim of this study is to report peripheral reperfusion of ischemic areas of the retina on ultra-widefield fluorescein angiography (UWFA) following anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) intravitreal injections in patients treated for diabetic retinopathy. METHODS: This study is a retrospective review of 16 eyes of 15 patients with diabetic retinopathy, who received anti-VEGF intravitreal injections and underwent pre- and postinjection UWFA. The main outcome measured was the presence of reperfusion in postinjection UWFA images in areas of the retina that demonstrated nonperfusion in preinjection images. Images were analyzed for reperfusion qualitatively and quantitatively by two graders. RESULTS: Twelve of 16 eyes (75%) or 11 of 15 patients (73.3%) demonstrated reperfusion following anti-VEGF injection. On UWFA, reperfusion was detected both within the field of 7-standard field (7SF) fluorescein angiography and in the periphery outside the 7SF. Four of 16 eyes or 4 of 15 patients did not demonstrate reperfusion, one of which had extensive scarring from prior panretinal photocoagulation. CONCLUSION: In patients with diabetic retinopathy, treatment with anti-VEGF agents can be associated with reperfusion of areas of nonperfusion, as demonstrated by UWFA.

We report the case of a 2-month-old girl with Dandy-Walker variant who presented with strabismus, pathologic myopia measuring -16.00 D in each eye, diffuse chorioretinal atrophy and pigment mottling in the macula of both eyes, and areas of retinal capillary nonperfusion in both eyes. The patient's brother also has Dandy-Walker variant and was found to have bilateral severe myopia, myopic fundi, tilted optic disks with peripapillary atrophy, extensive areas of white without pressure, areas of lattice degeneration, and several chronic-appearing atrophic retinal holes surrounded by pigmentation. We hypothesize that children with Dandy-Walker variant may present with refractive errors such as pathologic myopia and with diverse retinal findings, including retinal ischemia. A lower threshold for ophthalmologic examination may be considered in this population.

PURPOSE: To review a series of extramacular choroidal neovascular membranes (CNVMs) in the context of their choroidal features, as determined by optical coherence tomography (OCT). METHODS: Patients with extramacular CNVMs were identified from a tertiary care center through a review of records. The charts and cases were reviewed using multimodal imaging including fundus photography, OCT, fluorescein angiography (FA), and indocyanine angio-graphy (ICG). RESULTS: Of six patients with extramacular CNVMs evaluated in this series, four patients (66.7%) exhibited pachychoroidopathy on OCT imaging under or adjacent to the extramacular CNVM. All four of these patients also exhibited pachychoroidopathy in the macular OCT distant from the CNVM. CONCLUSION: Pachychoroidopathy is implicated in some cases of extramacular CNVMs. This represents the first report, to our knowledge, of pachychoroidopathy in extramacular CNVM.

PURPOSE:: To assess for change in intraocular pressure (IOP) in neovascular age-related macular degeneration patients switched to aflibercept after receiving previous treatments of intravitreal bevacizumab or ranibizumab. METHODS:: This is a retrospective chart review of the first 53 patients (53 eyes) treated with at least 2 injections of 2 mg in 0.05 mL of aflibercept by March 6, 2013, after at least 2 previous injections of 0.5 mg in 0.05 mL of ranibizumab with or without previous injections of 1.25 mg in 0.05 mL of bevacizumab. The analysis was restricted to the first such sequence within each patient. The last previous anti-vascular endothelial growth factor injection before the switch to aflibercept was ranibizumab in all cases included in the study. Each person served as his or her own control. The pre-aflibercept IOP in the before state (treatment with bevacizumab or ranibizumab) was the preinjection IOP measure before dilation at the visit of the first aflibercept injection. Statistical analysis was performed using Microsoft Excel. RESULTS:: There were 41 patients who were first treated with ranibizumab followed by aflibercept and 12 patients treated with ranibizumab and bevacizumab followed by aflibercept. For each of these sequences, IOP in the treated eye during treatment with aflibercept (the after state) was computed in 3 different ways: the first IOP, the last IOP, and the mean IOP for the period when treated with aflibercept. The pooled data showed a mean pre-aflibercept (the before state) IOP of 14.87 that decreased to a mean first IOP of 14.57, mean last IOP of 13.79, and a mean IOP of 14.14 during aflibercept treatment. The inference is based on the pooled analysis. The 95% confidence interval for the differences (after minus before) were -0.30 (-1.12 to 0.52), -1.08 (-1.83 to -0.32), and -0.73 (-1.30 to -0.17) for the first, last, and mean IOPs, respectively. The corresponding P values were 0.46 for the first, 0.006 for the last, 0.01 for the mean IOP during the aflibercept treatment period. CONCLUSION:: Intraocular pressure was found to be significantly lower in patients switched to aflibercept after previous treatments with ranibizumab and/or bevacizumab. Aflibercept may have a more favorable IOP safety profile in patients previously on other anti-vascular endothelial growth factor treatments.

The aim of this study is to determine the incidence of cystoid macular edema (CME) following repositioning and McCannel iris-suturing of dislocated intraocular lenses. This study is conducted in an urban private practice. A retrospective chart review was performed on consecutive patients who presented with posteriorly dislocated IOLs and underwent iris-sutured posterior chamber (PC) intraocular lens (IOL) placement using the McCannel suture technique by a single surgeon for IOL repositioning from December 2008 to August 2012. All charts were reviewed for etiology of dislocation, time elapsed from cataract surgery, best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), slit-lamp examination, tonometry, and dilated fundus examination. Presence of CME was determined by spectral domain optical coherence tomography (Cirrus HD OCT; Carl Zeiss Meditec, Dublin, California, USA). Of the 58 cases reviewed, lens dislocation resulted from trauma in 21 %, zonular incompetence in 17 %, recent intraocular surgery in 12 %, and unknown in 50 %. Mean best-corrected logMAR visual acuity improved from 1.07 preoperatively to 0.52 postoperatively (P < 0.001). The mean follow-up time was 7.8 months. Two cases (3.4 %) of CME occurred postoperatively at a mean follow-up time of 4.5 months. Of these two patients, one had concurrent fragmetome lensectomy at the time of initial surgery. Iris-sutured PC IOL placement in this case series resulted in an improvement in BCVA with a low incidence of CME.

This study investigated whether the presence of vitreomacular interface abnormalities (VMIAs) affects the improvement in visual acuity and edema of patients with diabetic macular edema (DME) who received three anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) injections. Fifteen eyes of 11 patients with clinically significant macular edema were retrospectively divided into either the control group (only DME) or the experimental group (DME and VMIA) based on optical coherence tomography images. We defined VMIA patterns as epiretinal membrane and/or anomalous vitreomacular adhesion. Changes in central macular thickness (CMT), total macular volume (TMV), and best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) from the baseline to post third injection were compared between the two groups. After the third injection, the decreases in CMT and TMV were not statistically different between the two groups. The improvement in BCVA was larger in the control group (0.1742 +/- 0.0508 logMAR) than in the experimental group (0.0766 +/- 0.0562 logMAR; p < 0.01). Our study showed that after the third anti-VEGF injection, the BCVA of patients with both DME and VMIAs improved significantly less than that of patients with only DME. Our results suggest that VMIAs may play a crucial role in reducing the therapeutic effects of anti-VEGF agents.

Abstract Purpose: To assess long-term visual outcomes of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) patients treated with anti-VEGF therapy using a Treat and Extend Regimen (TER) and to correlate these results with neovascular lesion type. Methods: Of the 374 treatment-naive patients with neovascular AMD treated by a single physician between October 2005 and March 2013 with a TER of intravitreal anti-VEGF therapy, 231 patients met the following inclusion criteria: age >50 years, visual acuity of 20/20-20/800, absence of permanent structural damage to the central fovea, and a minimum of 12-months of follow-up. Neovascular lesions were classified using fluorescein angiography (FA) alone as occult choroidal neovascularization (CNV), classic CNV, retinal angiomatous proliferation (RAP) and mixed CNV, and using an anatomic classification based on both FA and optical coherence tomography (OCT) as Types 1 (sub-RPE), 2 (subretinal), 3 (intraretinal) and 4 (mixed) neovascularization (NV). Correlations were made between long-term visual acuity, number of intravitreal anti-VEGF injections, and neovascular lesion type using both classifications. Results: 231 patients (266 eyes) with a mean (+/-SD) age of 81.2 (+/-7.9) years received a mean number of 28.6 (+/-14.9) intravitreal anti-VEGF injections during a mean follow-up of 3.6 years (range 1 to 7 years), with a retention rate of 64%. The mean visual acuity was 20/91 at baseline, 20/67 at 1 year, 20/72 at 3 years and 20/72 at 6 years. By lesion type, the mean VA at baseline was 20/73, 20/145, 20/176, and 20/167 for Types 1, 2, 3, and 4 NV, respectively. At 6 years, the mean VA was 20/48, 20/42, 20/112, and 20/92 for Types 1, 2, 3, and 4 NV, respectively. At final visit, after a mean follow-up of 3.6 years, the mean VA was 20/85 for the entire cohort and 20/59, 20/93, 20/93 and 20/151 for Types 1, 2, 3, and 4 NV, respectively. The mean number of injections per year was 8.0 for the entire cohort and 8.5, 7.6, 7.8 and 7.8 for Types 1, 2, 3, and 4 NV, respectively. Conclusions: Patients with Type 1 NV had better long-term visual outcomes compared to the other neovascular lesion types, despite receiving more intravitreal anti-VEGF injections. Other results from the same study cohort showed that patients with Type 1 NV were less likely to develop GA, which may account partly for their better long-term visual results