Characteristics of Optical Coherence Tomographic Hyperreflective Foci in Retinal Vein Occlusion

Abstract

Hyperreflective foci delineated on spectral-domain OCT suggest the pathogenesis regarding the flow of extravasated blood constituents in retinal vein occlusion.

Hyperreflective Dots: A New Spectral-Domain Optical Coherence Tomography Entity for Follow-Up and Prognosis in Exudative Age-Related Macular Degeneration

“…Blue-light fundus photography and autofluorescence images eliminate the possibility that HRD could be the focal accumulation of pigment or lipofuscin granules. These imaging techniques do not reveal any alteration supporting this origin, and this has also been agreed by other investigators [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. Punctuate hemorrhages are usually larger in size and are located mainly in the inner retinal layers.…”

“…The HRD may also be present in different retinal diseases, such as retinal vein occlusion, diabetic macular edema or uveitis [11,12,13,14,15,16,17]. The HRD are scattered, punctiform, small in size, mainly located in the outer retinal layers and/or around pockets of fluid accumulation and are typically not confluent (fig.…”

“…HRD are found scattered throughout all retinal layers, primarily around fluid accumulation in the intraretinal cystoid spaces. Subsequently, they have also been reported in different retinal diseases, such as retinal vein occlusion and diabetic macular edema [11,12,13,14]. …”

Relationship between retinal morphological findings and visual function in age-related macular degeneration

“…Hyperreflective foci are reported to be present in diabetic macular edema [20], retinal vein occlusion [21], and AMD [18], and have been suggested to be subclinical features of lipoprotein extravasation, which implies blood-retinal barrier impairment. Results consistent with this finding have been reported by other authors; the presence of hyperreflective foci is associated with hard exudate deposition [22].…”

Correlation Between Hyperreflective Foci and Clinical Outcomes in Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration After Switching to Aflibercept

“…3 It was reported that proliferation and inner retinal migration of HF occurred during follow-up in eyes with intermediate AMD, and they were associated with higher incidence of geographic atrophy; therefore, HF proliferation and migration may serve as biomarkers for AMD progression. 4 The role of HF has been investigated in several other retinal disorders like retinitis pigmentosa, 5 central retinal vein occlusion, 6 and branch retinal vein occlusion. 7 These structures are also scattered throughout all retinal layers in diabetic macular edema (DME) and might represent the initial stages in the development of intraretinal hard exudates.…”