Detection of retinal metabolic stress resulting from central serous retinopathy.

Purpose: To test whether eyes with central serous retinopathy have elevated retinal flavoprotein fluorescence (FPF) using a novel clinical imaging method.

Methods: Three male patients with unilateral central serous retinopathy were examined for FPF at 535 nm induced by 1-msec flashes of 467 nm light. FPF was captured with an electron multiplying charged-coupled device camera with a 512 x 512 pixel chip. Average intensity of retinal FPF for each affected eye was compared with the contralateral, unaffected eye and with six age-matched control eyes by analyzing histograms of pixel intensities plotted for each eye.

Results: For each patient, the central serous retinopathy-affected eye had a significantly greater retinal FPF when compared with the retinal FPF of the unaffected eye. Eyes affected with central serous retinopathy had retinal FPF values that averaged 98% greater than the retinal FPF of age-matched control eyes.

Conclusion: Flavoprotein fluorescence analysis may be useful for rapidly and noninvasively identifying metabolic tissue stress of central serous retinopathy.