Name

654 - Histoire naturelle des néovaisseaux choroïdiens naïfs-quiescents chez les patients avec la dégénérescence maculaire liée à l'âge

Treatment-naïve quiescent choroidal neovascularization (CNV) may be defined as a neovascluar lesion arising from the choroid and not associated with retinal exudation findings on structural optical coherence tomography (OCT) for at least 6 months. The aim of the study was to describe the long-term evolution of treatment-naïve CNV, in age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Patients with treatment-naïve quiescent CNV underwent a comprehensive ophthalmologic examination including best corrected visual acuity, fluorescein angiography, indocyanine green angiography, structural OCT and OCT angiography. Patients were followed for at least 1-year and at last follow-up, studied eyes were divided into two groups: eyes with quiescent CNV converting to exudative AMD (eAMD) and those not progressing to eAMD during the study period.

Sixty-eight eyes of 68 patients were included. Mean follow-up was 40±28 months (range: 12-108 months). Finally, 11/68 eyes were excluded because of poor image quality in the study eye. At last follow-up, 33/57 (57.9%) eyes had quiescent CNVs without retinal exudation while 24/57 (42.1%) eyes had developed retinal exudation findings, on structural OCT. The retinal exudation rate was 8.7% and 15.8% during 1-year and 2-years of follow-up, respectively.

Over half of the treatment-naïve quiescent CNVs in our long-term study did not progress to eAMD. It is likely that quiescent CNV may be a compensatory form of vessels growing beneath the sub-retinal pigment epithelium space in response to an ischemic outer retina.

Treatment naïve quiescent CNV seems to be a form of neovascularization with a low rate of activation over the time.