Comparison of retinal and choroidal changes in Fuchs' uveitis syndrome.

PURPOSE: The assessment of retinal and choroidal changes in eyes with unilateral Fuchs uveitis syndrome (FUS) with the fellow eye and healthy control group.

METHODS

Thirty-nine unilateral FUS patients and 42 healthy control subjects were enrolled. Spectralis domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT, Spectralis; Heidelberg Engineering GmbH, Heidelberg, Germany) was used to evaluate retinal and choroidal structures. Retinal and choroidal thicknesses were recorded from OCT images. Choroidal images were binarized to calculate choroidal vascularity index (CVI) with ImageJ 1.52 s (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA) program.

RESULTS

CVI was found to be significantly lower in the FUS group compared to the fellow eyes and healthy control groups (p = 0.039 and p = 0.046, respectively). There was no significant difference in central choroidal thickness in the FUS group compared to the fellow eyes and control groups (p = 0.552 and p = 0.321, respectively). There was no statistically significant difference between the 3 groups in terms of macular thickness in all quadrants (p > 0.05 for all quadrants).

CONCLUSIONS

Affected eyes tend to decrease in CVI, while there is no difference in retinal and central choroidal thicknesses in patients with FUS compared to eyes of other unaffected eyes and healthy individuals. It may be because the chronic inflammation associated with the disease affects the vascular structure of the choroid.