Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography in Amblyopia

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The posterior segment of the eye has been investigated in the pathogenesis of amblyopia, but no abnormalities have yet been reported consistently. PATIENTS AND METHODS: In this prospective study, treatment-naïve amblyopes aged 6 years to 12 years with best-corrected visual acuity in the amblyopic eye between logMAR 0.3 and logMAR 0.7 and logMAR 0.1 or better in the contralateral eye were recruited. All patients underwent optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) imaging of the retina and choriocapillaris. RESULTS: The mean age of the 14 recruited patients was 10.26 years ± 1.31 years. The choriocapillaris vessel density was found to be attenuated in the amblyopic eye as compared to the fellow eye. There was a significant difference in the choriocapillaris vessel density between the amblyopic (39.61% ± 0.45%), and the fellow eye (44.10% ± 0.37%; P = .005). The choriocapillaris vessel density correlated positively with the visual acuity (r = 0.41; P = .03). CONCLUSION: The pathogenesis of amblyopia may involve the choriocapillaris, which is the primary source of blood supply for the photoreceptors. [ Ophthalmic Surg Lasers Imaging Retina. 2019;50:e294–e299.]