title: Spontaneous retinal pigment epithelium tear in geographic atrophy.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To report two cases of spontaneous retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) tears occurring in two patients affected with geographic atrophy (GA) due to non-exudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
  
  
  METHODS
  Two patients (a 79-year-old man and a 71-year-old woman) presented to our department with progressive visual loss. The man had a best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) of 20/100 in the right eye (RE) and 20/50 in the left eye (LE); the woman had a BCVA of 20/200 in the RE and 20/160 in the LE. Upon complete ophthalmologic examination, revealing a large area of atrophy (>175 μm in diameter) along with pigmentary changes, calcified drusen and no choroidal neovascularization (CNV) in either eye, the patients were diagnosed with GA due to non-exudative AMD. Interestingly, the imaging modalities performed, including fluorescein angiography (FA), indocyanine green angiography (ICGA) and spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT), clearly highlighted the presence of spontaneous RPE tears in the context of non-exudative AMD, while in general, RPE tears are a well-recognized complication of exudative AMD.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  To our knowledge, this is the first description of spontaneous RPE tears as a possible complication of GA due to non-exudative AMD.
authors.affiliation: Department of ophthalmology, IRRCS Ospedale San Raffaele, Vita-Salute University, 20132 Milan, Italy; Department of ophthalmology, university Paris Est Créteil, centre hospitalier intercommunal de Créteil, 94010 Créteil, France.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Cavallero
authors.affiliation: Department of ophthalmology, IRRCS Ospedale San Raffaele, Vita-Salute University, 20132 Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Corvi
authors.affiliation: Department of ophthalmology, university Paris Est Créteil, centre hospitalier intercommunal de Créteil, 94010 Créteil, France.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Souied
authors.affiliation: Department of ophthalmology, IRRCS Ospedale San Raffaele, Vita-Salute University, 20132 Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bandello
authors.affiliation: Department of ophthalmology, IRRCS Ospedale San Raffaele, Vita-Salute University, 20132 Milan, Italy; Department of ophthalmology, university Paris Est Créteil, centre hospitalier intercommunal de Créteil, 94010 Créteil, France. Electronic address: giuseppe.querques@hotmail.it.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Querques
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000792:Angiography; D002114:Calcinosis / Q000209:etiology; D005260:Female; D005451:Fluorescein Angiography; D057092:Geographic Atrophy / Q000150:complications*; D006801:Humans; D007208:Indocyanine Green; D008297:Male; D015593:Retinal Drusen / Q000209:etiology; D012167:Retinal Perforations / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D055213:Retinal Pigment Epithelium / Q000473:pathology*; D012422:Rupture, Spontaneous; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence; D014792:Visual Acuity
chemical_list: D007208:Indocyanine Green
keywords: Age-related macular degeneration; Atrophie géographique; Déchirure; Décollement de l’épithélium pigmentaire (rétinien); Dégénérescence maculaire liée à l’âge; Geographic atrophy; Pigment epithelial detachment; Retinal pigment epithelium; Tear; Épithélium pigmentaire rétinien