PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Michalis Georgiou
AU  - Angelos Kalitzeos
AU  - Emily J Patterson
AU  - Alfredo Dubra
AU  - Joseph Carroll
AU  - Michel Michaelides
TI  - Adaptive optics imaging of inherited retinal diseases
AID  - 10.1136/bjophthalmol-2017-311328
DP  - 2017 Nov 15
TA  - British Journal of Ophthalmology
PG  - bjophthalmol-2017-311328
4099  - http://bjo.bmj.com/content/early/2017/11/15/bjophthalmol-2017-311328.short
4100  - http://bjo.bmj.com/content/early/2017/11/15/bjophthalmol-2017-311328.full
AB  - Adaptive optics (AO) ophthalmoscopy allows for non-invasive retinal phenotyping on a microscopic scale, thereby helping to improve our understanding of retinal diseases. An increasing number of natural history studies and ongoing/planned interventional clinical trials exploit AO ophthalmoscopy both for participant selection, stratification and monitoring treatment safety and efficacy. In this review, we briefly discuss the evolution of AO ophthalmoscopy, recent developments and its application to a broad range of inherited retinal diseases, including Stargardt disease, retinitis pigmentosa and achromatopsia. Finally, we describe the impact of this in vivo microscopic imaging on our understanding of disease pathogenesis, clinical trial design and outcome metrics, while recognising the limitation of the small cohorts reported to date.