Characteristics and Spatial Distribution of Structural Features in Age-related Macular Degeneration-a MACUSTAR Study Report.

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Abstract

To report the prevalence and topographic distribution of structural characteristics in study participants with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and controls in the cross-sectional study part of the MACUSTAR study (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03349801).European, multicenter cohort study.301 eyes of 301 subjects with early (n=34), intermediate (n=168) and late AMD (n=43), as well as eyes without any AMD features (n=56).In study eyes with intermediate AMD (iAMD), the presence of structural AMD biomarkers including pigmentary abnormalities (PA), pigment-epithelium detachment (PED), refractile deposits, reticular pseudodrusen (RPD), hyperreflective foci (HRF), incomplete/complete retinal pigment epithelium and outer retinal atrophy (i/cRORA)) and quiescent choroidal neovascularization (qCNV) was systematically determined in the prospectively acquired multimodal retinal imaging cross-sectional data set of MACUSTAR. Retinal layer thicknesses and the retinal pigment-epithelium drusen complex (RPEDC) volume were determined for the total study cohort in spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) imaging using a deep-learning based algorithm.Prevalence and topographic distribution of structural iAMD features.A total of 301 study eyes of 301 subjects with a mean (± standard deviation) age of 71.2 ± 7.20 years (63.1% female) were included. Besides large drusen, the most prevalent structural feature in intermediate AMD (iAMD) study eyes were PA (57.1%), followed by HRF (51.8%) and RPD (22.0%). PED lesions were observed in 4.8%, vitelliform lesions in 4.2%, refractile deposits in 3.0% and qCNV in 2.4%. Direct precursor lesions for manifest retinal atrophy were detected in 10.7% (iRORA) and 4.2% (cRORA) in iAMD eyes. Overall, highest RPEDC volume with a median of 98.92 x 10-4 mm³ was found in iAMD study eyes. Spatial analysis demonstrated a predominant distribution of RPD in the superior and temporal subfields at a foveal eccentricity of 1.5-2 mm, while HRF and large drusen had a distinct topographic distribution involving the foveal center.Detailed knowledge of the prevalence and distribution of structural iAMD biomarkers is vital to identifying reliable outcome measure for disease progression. Longitudinal analyses are needed to evaluate their prognostic value for conversion to advanced disease stages.Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Inc.