Purpose: To comprehensively evaluate the retinal and choroidal changes in eyes with Type 2 idiopathic macular telangiectasia using "en face" and B-scan spectral domain optical coherence tomography (OCT), and to compare their respective contributions to this evaluation.
Methods: Eyes with a diagnosis of proliferative or nonproliferative Type 2 macular telangiectasia were prospectively studied. All patients underwent an extensive ophthalmologic examination including biomicroscopic fundus examination, color photography, fundus autofluorescence, fluorescein angiography, B-scan and en face spectral domain OCT.
Results: Twenty eyes of 10 patients were included in this study. En face OCT C-scans and conventional B-scans were both able to show inner crystalline deposits (15%), retinal capillary anomalies (100%), intraretinal cysts (80%), hyperreflective spots in the outer nuclear layer (100%) and external limiting membrane (80%), hyperplastic pigment plaques (30%), intraretinal neovascularization (20%), photoreceptor loss (100%), and choroidal cavitations (30%). En face OCT C-scans provided more information than B-scans on intraretinal neovascularization, photoreceptor loss, and choroidal cavitations. Also, en face OCT C-scans provided better visualization of the retinal vessels and telangiectasia than fluorescein angiography.
Conclusion: En face OCT is a noninvasive and reproducible technique that helps to better assess and follow up retinal and choroidal processes in Type 2 macular telangiectasia.