Presentation and Outcome of Patients With Punctate Inner Choroidopathy at a Tertiary Referral Center

Abstract

Of punctate inner choroidopathy patients in this series, 75% had CNV, and more than 30% developed multiple neovascular membranes. With treatment, all patients with follow-up of ≥ 3 years had >20/40 vision in at least 1 eye.

Intravitreal anti-VEGF treatment for choroidal neovascularization secondary to punctate inner choroidopathy

“…PIC commonly occurs in young, healthy individuals of Caucasian origin [1,12,13]. Similar to our data (mean age 35 years), other authors reported a mean age around 30-41 years [1,9,13,15]. Consistent with other reports [12,25,27], our patients were predominantly Caucasian (100%), myopic (75%) and female (69%).…”

“…Here, we present a monocentric retrospective data analysis of 16 patients with CNV secondary to PIC with a mean follow-up of 15 months. PIC commonly occurs in young, healthy individuals of Caucasian origin [1,12,13]. Similar to our data (mean age 35 years), other authors reported a mean age around 30-41 years [1,9,13,15].…”

“…The recent establishment of intravitreal antiangiogenic treatment for CNV secondary to exudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD) has led to increasing reports of anti-VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) therapy for CNV of other causes than AMD and in younger populations [17][18][19]. However, due to the rarity of PIC-related CNV no evidence-based treatment protocol exists [1,13]. So far only single case reports [20][21][22][23][24] or small patient series [2,25,27] have been published on intravitreal treatment of CNV secondary to PIC.…”

“…Although some individuals show a self-limiting course of the disease with good visual prognosis, choroidal neovascular membranes frequently evolve as common complication of PIC, threatening central visual acuity and requiring prompt ophthalmic treatment [1,3,11]. The risk of choroidal neovascularization (CNV) development secondary to PIC was found to be up to 75% [1,12,13]. The formation of CNV vessels seems to be triggered by an initial inflammatory reaction at the level of the choriocapillaris, which leads to a focal defect of choroid, Bruch's membrane and RPE [1,14].…”

“…5 months on average (SD 5.5, range[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. Although the eyes treated by ranibizumab (n = 2) had a slightly better functional outcome (DBCVA ?1.5 lines) compared to the eyes injected with bevacizumab (n = 13, DBCVA ?0.77 lines), no conclusion can be drawn about the superiority of one of the anti-VEGF agents because of the low sample sizes.Visual acuity, refraction and functional outcomeThe refractive error was recorded in 13 (81%) eyes with a mean spherical equivalent of -4.3 dioptres (D) (SD 3.1 D, range -7.0 to 0.5 D).…”