Angioid streaks are irregular crack like dehiscences in Bruch's membrane that invariably radiate outward from the peripapillary area in all directions9. They are associated with a wide variety of systemic diseases, such as pseudoxanthoma elasticum, Ehler-Danlos syndrome, Paget's disease and sickle-cell hemoglobinopathies9.The prognosis in patients with angioid streaks is guarded because visual impairment occurs in 70% to 86% due to the occurrence of macular choroidal neovascularization (CNV)9,15,51. The natural history of such lesions is poor, with most resulting in fovea involvement and central vision loss9,187. Laser photocoagulation treatment of CNV may be beneficial in selected cases169,171,189,191. However, the recurrence rate is higher than with CNV associated with other macular disorders168,170 and the final results reported in the literature as being rather disappointing9. Recently, limited macular translocation176,177, as well as photodynamic therapy with verteporfin (PDT)151,152,154,155,157,182 were searched as alternative treatment modalities for subfoveal CNV due to angioid streaks in small series of patients with controversial results.The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of conventional PDT with verteporfin in a large series of patients with subfoveal or juxtafoveal CNV due to angioid streaks and to compare it to the effectiveness of early retreatment PDT (8 weeks following initial therapy) in patients who experienced disease progression.MATERIALS AND METHODSA prospective analysis of 36 eyes of 33 consecutive patients with subfoveal or juxtafoveal CNV secondary to angioid streaks that were treated with PDT from January 2001 through January 2005 and completed at least 18 months of the follow-up time, was conducted. The greatest linear dimension of the entire lesion had to be 6000 pm or less. Eyes with best corrected visual acuity of less than 20/400 were not treated. None of the eyes had been previously treated by conventional laser photocoagulation for the macular CNV.Prior to the treatment, each patient had undergone a complete ocular examination including contact lens fundus biomicroscopy, color or red-free fundus photography, and digital fluorescein angiography (FA) using the Topcon Imagenet 2000 Digital Imaging System with TRC-50IA fundus camera (Topcon Corporation, Paramus, New Jersey, USA). Fluorescein angiograms were evaluated for lesion size and leakage of the neovascular membrane. Best-corrected visual acuity was determined in all patients using standard Snellen charts.Patients were divided in 2 groups. In group 1, retreatments were performed according to the standard protocol followed in the Treatment of Age-Related Macular Degeneration with Photodynamic Therapy Investigation (TAP) every 12 weeks107, 146. During this time, 17 eyes of 15 patients were included in the study in Group 1. In Group 2, 19 eyes of 17 patients received early retreatments (8 weeks after the previous PDT) when indicated according to the criteria of the TAP study for conventional 3-month retreatment.The follow-up time of the patients ranged from 18 to 66 months (mean 37.6 months). The re-examinations followed the same procedure as the first examination. Informed consent for examination and treatment was obtained from each patient after a full explanation of the procedure.Numerical data in the text and the tables are presented as mean (±SD). Improvement or decline of visual acuity was defined as a change of at least two lines.
Two Cases of Corneal Neovascularization Treatment Using High-frequency Radio Wave Electrosurgery
