Original articleAutologous retinal pigment epithelium and choroid translocation in patients with exudative age-related macular degeneration: short-term follow-up☆
Section snippets
Methods
Patients with a subfoveal choroidal neovascular membrane that was more than 50% occult on fluorescein angiography and larger than 1 disk diameter, with or without submacular blood, were eligible for retinal pigment epithelium translocation. Fourteen patients have been included from October 12, 2001, but only the first six were followed up for more than 7 months. This study had been approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Rotterdam Eye Hospital and written informed consent was obtained
Results
The preoperative duration of visual loss in the operated eye ranged from 2 weeks to 4 months. Visual acuity ranged from 20/400 to 20/200. End-stage macular degeneration was present in the fellow eye in five patients (Table 1).
On fluorescein angiography five patients had a mixed or occult subfoveal neovascularization; in 1 patient (Patient 1) no angiogram had been performed because of a thick submacular hemorrhage. On angiography the size of the neovascular membranes varied from 1 to 2 disk
Discussion
This study proved that translocation of a healthy patch of retinal pigment epithelium and choroid in the subfoveal area of patients with AMD can lead to improvement of visual acuity, central fixation, and normal retinal pigment epithelium autofluorescence for a period of more than 1 year. Fluorescein and indocyanine green angiography suggested the presence of a perfused choroid and choriocapillary in or under the graft. We speculate that some degree of perfusion of the graft occurred either by
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InternetAdvance publication at ajo.com July 8, 2003.