Optical coherence tomography angiography characteristics of exudative and non-exudative treatment-naïve pachychoroid neovasculopathy.

Aim: To describe the optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) characteristics of exudative and non-exudative treatment-naïve pachychoroid neovasculopathy (PNV).

Methods: Thirty-five patients with exudative treatment-naïve PNV and 13 with non-exudative treatment-naïve PNV between March 2020 and December 2021 were included. All patients underwent ophthalmologic examination, including fluorescein angiography (FA), indocyanine green angiography (ICGA), spectral-domain OCT, and OCTA. The clinical data of the patients were retrospectively analyzed.

Results: The study included 51 eyes from 46 patients, of whom 33 (71.7%) were male. The central macular thickness (CMT) in the exudative PNV group was significantly higher than that in the non-exudative PNV group (383.97±132.16 µm 213.13±51.63 µm; <0.001). The maximum height of flat irregular pigment epithelial detachments (FIPED) was 45.40±11.86 µm in the non-exudative PNV group, significantly lower than the 71.58±20.91 µm (<0.001) in the exudative PNV group. The area of PNV of the non-exudative PNV group was, significantly larger than that of the exudative PNV group (1.06±0.84 mm 0.63±0.80 mm, =0.016). There was a significant difference in PNV morphology between the two groups (<0.001). Multivariate logistic regression analysis found that the maximum height of FIPED (OR=1.156, 95%CI: 1.019-1.312; =0.024) and microvascular branches (OR=69.412, 95%CI: 3.538-1361.844; =0.005) were independent predictors of PNV activity.

Conclusion: The OCTA imaging finds that there are significant differences in CMT, maximum height of FIPED, PNV area, and morphology of exudative PNV and non-exudative PNV groups. OCTA can accurately identify the clinical and imaging features of exudative and non-exudative treatment-naïve PNV, and distinguish PNV activity.