title: The prevalence and clinical characteristics of Charles Bonnet Syndrome in Danish patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the prevalence and clinical characteristics of the Charles Bonnet Syndrome (CBS) in a group of Danish patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and to study whether CBS is associated with a specific retinal morphology.
  
  
  METHODS
  Three-hundred consecutive patients with neovascular AMD attending assessment consultations following variable series of ranibizumab therapy were actively asked whether they had symptoms of CBS. If they responded positively, a detailed questionnaire was orally administered to inquire into the details of the symptoms. Detailed optical coherence tomography and autofluorescence was performed. A comparison was made between retinal morphology of a randomly selected equal number of patients without CBS to patients with CBS.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Twenty-five (8.3%) patients of 300 had hallucinations attributable to CBS. The median lesion size - measured as total area with increased autofluorescence - in the CBS group (median 14.2 mm(2)) was not significantly different from the non-CBS group (median 16.2 mm(2)); however, the patients with CBS had significantly larger areas of geographic atrophy (median 2 mm(2)) compared to patients without CBS (median 0.3 mm(2)) (p = 0.002).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  CBS is not uncommon in an unselected population with neovascular AMD, and symptoms of CBS may be associated with larger areas of geographic atrophy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Copenhagen University Hospital, Roskilde, Denmark. asingh@dadlnet.dk
authors.forename: Amardeep
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.forename: Torben L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Sørensen
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003718:Denmark / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D057092:Geographic Atrophy / Q000150:complications* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006212:Hallucinations / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013577:Syndrome; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence; D015354:Vision, Low / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D014792:Visual Acuity / Q000502:physiology; D057135:Wet Macular Degeneration / Q000150:complications* / Q000503:physiopathology