Retinal findings of COVID-19 patients using ocular coherence tomography angiography two to three months after infection: Ocular appearance recovered COVID-19 patient.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the ocular disorders in COVID-19 patients, two to three months after infection.

METHODS

In this cross-sectional, historically controlled study, fifty-one COVID-19 patients were compared with thirty-seven age, and gender-matched healthy individuals. After complete ophthalmological examination, all participants underwent peripapillary and macular optical coherence tomography, and optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) measurements (OptoVue Inc, Freemont, CA, USA).

RESULTS

The time between the initial onset of symptoms, and ophthalmologic examination was 63.31±15.21 (40-95 days). Ophthalmic examination of all the recovered COVID-19 patients was within normal range. None of the peripapillary and macular OCTA parameters were significantly different between the two groups with pairwise comparisons, but after adjusting for age, gender, axial length, and signal strength index (SSI), recovered COVID-19 eyes showed a significant increase in peripapillary retinal nerve fiber (RNFL) thickness, superficial, and deep macular vessel densities in parafoveal and perifoveal regions compared with healthy control eyes (p<= 0.05). Inner retinal thickness overall is higher in recovered COVID-19 eyes compared to healthy eyes after adjustment.

CONCLUSION

Patients with moderate-intensity SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia had altered peripapillary and macular vessel density compared to healthy subjects. Further investigation is warranted to analyze the correlation of these changes with disease severity as well as evolution of these changes over time.