Increased inner retinal layer reflectivity in eyes with acute CRVO correlates with worse visual outcomes at 12 months

Purpose: To determine if inner retinal layer reflectivity in eyes with acute central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO) correlates with visual acuity at 12 months.

Methods: Macular optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans were obtained from 22 eyes of 22 patients with acute CRVO. Optical intensity ratios (OIRs), defined as the mean OCT reflectivity of the inner retinal layers normalized to the mean reflectivity of the RPE, were measured from the presenting and 1-month OCT image by both manual measurements of grayscale B-scans and custom algorithmic measurement of raw OCT volume data. OIRs were assessed for association with final visual outcome. Cohort subgroup division for analysis was determined statistically.

Results: Eyes with poorer final visual acuity (≥20/70) at 1 year were more likely to have a higher ganglion cell layer OIR than eyes with better final visual acuity (<20/70) at 1 month (manually: 0.591 to 0.735, P = 0.006, algorithmically: 0.663 to 0.799, P = 0.014). At 1 month, eyes with a poorer final visual acuity demonstrated a higher variance of OIR measurements (algorithmically: 0.087 vs. 0.160, P = 0.002) per scan than eyes with better final visual acuity.

Conclusions: In acute CRVO, ganglion cell layer changes at 1 month, including increased reflectivity and increased heterogeneity of reflectivity signal as expressed as OIR and OIR variance, were associated with a poorer visual prognosis at 1 year. Technique calibration with larger sample sizes and automated integration into OCT platforms will be necessary to determine if OIR can be a clinically useful prognostic tool.