OCTA versus dye angiography for the diagnosis and evaluation of neovascularisation in punctate inner choroidopathy

Purpose To compare the sensitivity and specificity of identifying and evaluating the choroidal neovascularisation (CNV) in punctate inner choroidopathy (PIC) by optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) versus dye angiography. Methods Consecutive patients diagnosed with PIC were enrolled in this study from June 2016 to December 2019. During the same visit, each patient underwent comprehensive ophthalmological and multimodal imaging examinations. The diagnostic accuracy of different modalities was evaluated. Results The study included 160 affected eyes from 123 patients. Ninety-five eyes (59.38%) were identified with secondary CNV by multimodal imaging. The sensitivity and specificity for CNV detection with OCTA alone were 89.47% and 98.46%, respectively. OCTA also provided the morphology of CNV to determine the activity of CNV with a sensitivity of 86.67% and a specificity of 94.29%. Conclusions In this study, we investigated the utility of OCTA in the diagnosis and evaluation of patients with CNV secondary to PIC. Compared with dye angiography, OCTA show convincing diagnosis accuracy. Although OCTA has several limitations and is not sufficient to replace dye angiography in clinical practice, it can provide clinicians with a non-invasive way to monitor patients with CNV secondary to PIC and guide treatment decisions.

Automated summary

This study compared the performance of optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) and dye angiography in detecting and evaluating choroidal neovascularisation (CNV) in punctate inner choroidopathy (PIC). The results showed that OCTA had high diagnostic accuracy and could provide morphological information of CNV to determine its activity. Although OCTA cannot replace dye angiography, it can serve as a feasible method for monitoring and guiding treatment decisions for patients with CNV secondary to PIC.