Relationship Between Subretinal Hyperreflective Material Reflectivity and Volume in Patients With Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration Following Anti-Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Treatment.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: To assess the relationship between subretinal hyperreflective material (SRHM) reflectivity and volume in patients treated with anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapy for choroidal neovascularization secondary to exudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD). PATIENTS AND METHODS: Data from 17 eyes of 16 patients with neovascular AMD undergoing anti-VEGF therapy were collected retrospectively. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) data were obtained using the Cirrus HD-OCT (Carl Zeiss Meditec, Dublin, CA) 512 × 128 macular cube protocol. Detailed manual segmentation was performed for each case using customized grading software. RESULTS: The mean macular volume declined from 10.4 mm(3) at baseline to 9.6 mm(3) at 12 months. SRHM volume declined from 0.33 mm(3) to 0.12 mm(3), whereas reflectivity increased from 0.48 to 0.64 units (P = .012). SRHM reflectivity correlated positively with logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution (logMAR) acuity (r = .49, P = .04) but correlated with SRHM volume (r = -0.50, P = .04) only at baseline. CONCLUSION: SRHM reflectivity, which correlated partially with SRHM volume, appears to carry independent information regarding disease activity. SRHM reflectivity may be useful for monitoring disease activity and response to therapy.

In vivo detection of hESC-RPE cells via confocal near-infrared fundus reflectance.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether the confocal near-infrared reflectance (NIR) imaging modality could detect the in vivo presence of retinal pigment epithelium cells derived from embryonic human stem cells (hESC-RPE) implanted into the subretinal space of the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) rat. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Monthly NIR images were obtained from RCS rats implanted with either hESC-RPE seeded on a parylene membrane (n = 14) or parylene membrane without cells (n = 14). Two independent, masked investigators graded the images. Histology and immunohistochemistry were performed at different time points (150, 210, and 270 postnatal days of age). RESULTS: NIR images revealed that an average of 20.53% of the parylene membrane area was covered by hESC-RPE. RPE-65 and TRA-1-85 confirmed the presence of human-specific RPE cells in those animals. No areas corresponding to cells were found in the group implanted with membrane only. Intergrader agreement was high (r = 0.89-0.92). CONCLUSION: The NIR mode was suitable to detect the presence of hESC-RPE seeded on a membrane and implanted into the subretinal space of the RCS rat.