Effectiveness of Reduced-fluence Photodynamic Therapy for Chronic Central Serous Chorioretinopathy: A Propensity Score Analysis.

Purpose: To investigate the 2-year effectiveness of reduced-fluence photodynamic therapy (rf-PDT) for chronic central serous chorioretinopathy (cCSC).

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Participants: A total of 223 consecutive patients with newly diagnosed cCSC with active serous retinal detachment (SRD) were included from May 2007 to June 2017 and followed up for at least 2 years. Patients who underwent ocular treatment other than cataract surgery before the beginning of recruitment and those who had macular neovascularization at baseline were excluded.

Methods: All patients underwent a comprehensive ophthalmic evaluation, including measurements of best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), slit-lamp examination, dilated fundus examination, color fundus photography, fundus autofluorescence, fluorescein angiography, indocyanine green angiography, and spectral-domain OCT. An inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) methodology was applied to balance 18 baseline characteristics between patients who received rf-PDT (rf-PDT group) and those who did not receive treatment (controls). Inverse probability of treatment weighting survival analysis and regression were performed.

Main Outcome Measures: The proportion of patients whose BCVA at 24 months was the same or improved compared with the baseline visual acuity (VA) (VA maintenance rate).

Results: A total of 155 eyes (rf-PDT group: 74; controls: 81) were analyzed. The patients' backgrounds were well balanced after IPTW with standardized differences of < 0.10. An IPTW regression analysis revealed that the VA maintenance rate was significantly higher in the rf-PDT group than in the controls (93.6% vs. 70.9%,  0.001, 12 months; 85.7% vs. 69.8%, 0.019, 24 months). The rf-PDT group tended to show better VA improvement, but was not statistically significant (-0.06 vs. -0.008, 0.07, 12 months; -0.06 vs. -0.03,  0.32, 24 months). An IPTW Cox regression showed a significantly higher rate of complete SRD remission in the rf-PDT group (hazard ratio, 5.05; 95% confidence interval, 3.24-7.89; 0.001).

Conclusions: The study suggests the beneficial effect of rf-PDT for cCSC for both VA maintenance and higher proportion of complete SRD remission in the clinical setting.