Update on Retinal Drug Safety: Proceedings of the ASRS ReST Committee Webinar Part 1.

Purpose: To review the first Research and Safety in Therapeutics (ReST) Committee webinar and summarize the most current recommendations regarding diagnosis and management. Methods: The ReST Committee is comprised of members of the American Society of Retina Surgeons (ASRS). At regular internal meetings, safety issue reports from the website are reviewed. A webinar series was started in 2021 to update members on multiple relevant potential safety events. Results: Topics reviewed in the webinar included pentosan polysulfate sodium (Elmiron) maculopathy, intraocular pressure elevation reported with the aflibercept prefilled syringe (PFS), and brolucizumab-associated inflammation with occlusive retinal vasculitis. Retinal toxicity related to intraoperative medications was reviewed, including hemorrhagic occlusive retinal vasculitis after intraocular vancomycin, dilution errors with intravitreal aminoglycosides, inadvertent overdoses of cefuroxime after cataract surgery, and toxic posterior segment syndrome after dropless cataract surgery using compounded triamcinolone-moxifloxacin. Indocyanine green toxicity has been reported after its use as an adjuvant during macular hole surgery. Conclusions: The past decade has seen advances in retinal pharmaceuticals and drug-delivery devices. The ASRS ReST Committee collects data from its website reporting system to inform members about up-to-date pharmaceutical and device safety concerns. Recently, a webinar was used to inform members of pigmentary maculopathy associated with pentosan polysulfate sodium, safety regarding the aflibercept PFS, intraocular inflammation and occlusive retinal vasculitis secondary to brolucizumab, and retinal toxicity from intraoperative ocular medications.

Retinal Pigment Epithelium Aperture Preceding Collapse of Vascular and Avascular Pigment Epithelial Detachments Secondary to AMD.

PURPOSE: To describe retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) aperture preceding the collapse of retinal pigment epithelium detachments (RPED) in eyes with neovascular and non-neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD). METHODS: Medical records from five patients with RPE aperture associated with vascular and avascular RPED were reviewed between 2010 and 2021 at the New England Eye Center at Tufts Medical Center. Main outcome measures were analysis of RPE aperture characteristics and temporal course of RPED collapse. RESULTS: RPE apertures were identified in six eyes from five women (mean age of 72.6 years). Two eyes had neovasacular AMD and four eyes had non-neovascular AMD. The RPE aperture initially appeared as a discontinuity at the apex of the RPED without rippling or retraction. Each aperture was associated with hypertransmission of OCT signal into the choroid as well as hyperreflective foci. The mean time between the appearance of the RPE aperture to near complete collapse of the RPED was 9 months. Following RPED collapse, one eye developed choroidal neovascularization, three eyes progressed to geographic atrophy, one eye had recurrence of the RPED, and one eye remained unchanged. CONCLUSION: RPE aperture is a characteristic OCT finding that can be observed in avascular or vascularized RPED secondary to AMD. RPE apertures precede RPED collapse, which are most likely to occur within nine months of RPE aperture detection.

Retinal blood flow speed quantification at the capillary level using temporal autocorrelation fitting OCTA [Invited].

Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) can visualize vasculature structures, but provides limited information about blood flow speed. Here, we present a second generation variable interscan time analysis (VISTA) OCTA, which evaluates a quantitative surrogate marker for blood flow speed in vasculature. At the capillary level, spatially compiled OCTA and a simple temporal autocorrelation model, ρ(τ) = exp(-ατ), were used to evaluate a temporal autocorrelation decay constant, α, as the blood flow speed marker. A 600 kHz A-scan rate swept-source OCT prototype instrument provides short interscan time OCTA and fine A-scan spacing acquisition, while maintaining multi mm2 field of views for human retinal imaging. We demonstrate the cardiac pulsatility and assess repeatability of α measured with VISTA. We show different α for different retinal capillary plexuses in healthy eyes and present representative VISTA OCTA in eyes with diabetic retinopathy.

Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography Analysis Toolbox: A Repeatable and Reproducible Software Tool for Quantitative Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography Analysis.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) Analysis Toolkit (OAT), a custom-designed software package, as a repeatable and reproducible tool for computing OCTA metrics across different devices. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fourteen participants were imaged using three devices. Foveal avascular zone, vessel index, vessel length index, and vessel diameter index were calculated using the OAT. Repeatability and reproducibility were assessed using the coefficient of variation and interclass correlation coefficient (ICC). RESULTS: Analysis of identical images demonstrated perfect levels of repeatability for all metrics (coefficient of variation 0%), which was a consequence of the software being deterministic (ie, producing the same outputs for the same inputs). Foveal avascular zone ICC values were in the excellent-to-good range (ICC > 0.6) for all devices. All values for vessel index (VI), vessel length index, and vessel diameter index fell in the good-to-fair (ICC > 0.4) or excellent-to-good range, except for vessel index analysis in the Cirrus device (ICC = 0.34). CONCLUSIONS: The OAT appears to be a reliable tool that may enable comparison between OCTA data sets acquired on different imaging instruments, thereby facilitating a more consistent approach to OCTA analysis. [Ophthalmic Surg Lasers Imaging Retina 2023;54:114-122.].