MONDAY, Aug. 27 (HealthDay News) -- Persistent placoid maculopathy -- a previously unreported clinical entity -- is similar to macular serpiginous choroiditis, but has a distinct clinical course, according to a new study published in the August issue of Ophthalmology.
Lee M. Jampol, M.D., of Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, and colleagues reviewed the medical records of six patients aged 50 to 68 who were treated at five different medical centers between 1984 and 2006.
The researchers found that persistent placoid maculopathy lesions were similar to those of acute macular serpiginous choroiditis, but they also found that the patients' visual acuity did not deteriorate until they developed complications related to choroidal neovascularization or pigmentary mottling. They also found that the patients' white macular lesions faded over a period of months, that choroidal neovascularization developed in 11 of 12 eyes and later converted to disciform macular scars in nine of 12 eyes, and that none of the eyes showed chorioretinal scar formation unless it was related to choroidal neovascularization.
"These features suggest that this disease is a distinct new clinical entity," the authors conclude.
Abstract
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