Development of typical age-related macular degeneration and polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy in fellow eyes of Japanese patients with exudative age-related macular degeneration.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the development of typical age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (PCV) in fellow eyes of Japanese patients with exudative AMD.


METHODS
Retrospective observational consecutive case series.


METHODS
Two hundred and sixteen Japanese patients were enrolled in this study from the outpatient clinic of the University of Tokyo Hospital. Ninety-one patients had typical AMD and one hundred and twenty-five patients had PCV. The average follow-up period was 33.6 and 25.1 months for typical AMD and PCV patients.


RESULTS
The cumulative incidence of involvement in fellow eyes with overall exudative AMD, including both typical AMD and PCV, was 3.4% in one year, 9.3% in three years, and 11.3% in five years. It was 3.6%, 7.3%, and 11.2% in typical AMD, and 3.2%, 11.1%, and 11.1% in PCV in one, three, and five years, respectively. Before the development of exudative AMD, patients with typical AMD had a variety of funduscopic findings including retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) atrophy, drusen, drusenoid pigment epithelial detachments (PED), and normal macula. PCV patients, on the other hand, had funduscopic findings of RPE atrophy. Inner choroidal vascular abnormality of vascular network and polypoidal formation was observed in several eyes before the clinical manifestation of exudative changes.


CONCLUSIONS
Typical AMD and PCV had similar probabilities of involving the fellow eye in unilaterally affected Japanese patients. RPE atrophy was a prevailing finding in fellow eyes of patients who developed PCV. In PCV, choroidal vascular network and polypoidal formation gradually grow before exudative changes.
Ueta
Takashi
T
Department of Ophthalmology, University of Tokyo School of Medicine, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
Iriyama
Aya
A
Francis
Jasmine
J
Takahashi
Hidenori
H
Adachi
Tomoko
T
Obata
Ryo
R
Inoue
Yuji
Y
Tamaki
Yasuhiro
Y
Yanagi
Yasuo
Y
D000368:Aged; D044466:Asian People / Q000208:ethnology; D001284:Atrophy; D002829:Choroid / Q000098:blood supply*; D004396:Coloring Agents; D005122:Exudates and Transudates; D005260:Female; D005451:Fluorescein Angiography; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007208:Indocyanine Green; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D008268:Macular Degeneration / Q000150:complications* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000209:etiology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016491:Peripheral Vascular Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000208:ethnology / Q000209:etiology*; D010857:Pigment Epithelium of Eye / Q000473:pathology; D012189:Retrospective Studies
D004396:Coloring Agents; D007208:Indocyanine Green