Long Term Time-Lapse Imaging of Geographic Atrophy: A Pilot Study

Frontiers in Medicine

article

Michel Paques¹  Nathaniel Norberg¹  Céline Chaumette¹  Florian Sennlaub²  Ethan Rossi³  Ysé Borella¹  Kate Grieve¹ 

[1] Paris Eye Imaging Group, Clinical Investigation Center 1423, Quinze-Vingts Hospital, INSERM-DHOS, Sorbonne Université;Institut de la Vision;Department of Ophthalmology, The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

关键词: age-related macular degeneration;    geographic atrophy;    scanning laser ophthalmoscopy;    optical coherence tomography;    time-lapse imaging;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fmed.2022.868163

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Geographic atrophy (GA), the late stage of age-related macular degeneration, is a major cause of visual disability whose pathophysiology remains largely unknown. Modern fundus imaging and histology revealed the complexity of the cellular changes that accompanies atrophy. Documenting the activity of the disease in the margins of atrophy, where the transition from health to disease occurs, would contribute to a better understanding of the progression of GA. Time-lapse imaging facilitates the identification of structural continuities in changing environments. In this retrospective pilot study, we documented the long-term changes in atrophy margins by time-lapse imaging of infrared scanning laser ophthalmoscopy (SLO) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) images in 6 cases of GA covering a mean period of 32.8 months (range, 18–72). The mean interval between imaging sessions was 2.4 months (range, 1.4–3.8). By viewing time-lapse sequences we observed extensive changes in the pattern of marginal hyperreflective spots, which associated fragmentation, increase and/or disappearance. Over the entire span of the follow-up, the most striking changes were those affecting hyperreflective spots closest to margins of atrophy, on the non-atrophic side of the retina; a continuum between the successive positions of some of the hyperreflective spots was detected, both by SLO and OCT. This continuum in their successive positions resulted in a subjective impression of a centrifugal motion of hyperreflective spots ahead of atrophy progression. Such mobilization of hyperreflective spots was detected up to several hundred microns away from atrophic borders. Such process is likely to reflect the inflammatory and degenerative process underlying GA progression and hence deserves further investigations. These results highlight the interest of multimodal time-lapse imaging to document cell-scale dynamics during progression of GA.

【 授权许可】

CC BY