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Haller’s vessels patterns in non-neovascular age-related macular degeneration

  • Retinal Disorders
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

To investigate the optical coherence tomography (OCT) en face reconstruction of the choroid in different phenotypes of non-neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD), to identify the relative distribution of the vascular patterns of the Haller’s layer in each AMD category.

Methods

Retrospective study enrolling consecutive patients with non-neovascular AMD. Patients were divided into the following: (1) those with reticular pseudodrusen (RPD); (2) those with small (< 63 μm) or medium–large drusen (63–124 μm); (3) those with geographic atrophy (GA). Qualitative analysis of the en face images provided by CIRRUS HD-OCT 5000 (Carl Zeiss Meditech, Inc., Dublin, USA) was performed, identifying five arrangements of Haller’s vessels: temporal herringbone, branched from below, laterally diagonal, double arcuate, and reticular. Choroidal thickness (CT) was measured from structural OCT. Healthy age-matched subjects were included as a control group.

Results

Fifty-eight eyes of 58 patients (20 eyes with RPD; 22 eyes with drusen; 16 eyes with GA) and 18 control eyes were enrolled. The laterally diagonal configuration was the most prevalent (40.0%) in the RPD group; the reticular pattern was the most frequent in the drusen group (50.0%); the double arcuate (62.5%) was the most recurrent pattern in patients with GA. In the control group, the temporal herringbone (38.9%) arrangement was the most represented. The CT associated with the temporal herringbone and reticular arrangement was significantly higher compared to the branched from below (p < 0.001), the laterally diagonal (p = 0.014), and the double arcuate pattern (p = 0.009).

Conclusion

Different phenotypes of non-neovascular AMD present a specific distribution of vascular arrangement on en face OCT. The temporal herringbone and the reticular pattern (the ones more associated in a physiological setting) disclosed a thicker choroid compared to the arrangements more represented in non-neovascular AMD-correlated phenotypes.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Karl Anders Knutsson (IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele, University Vita-Salute San Raffaele) for the English language editing.

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Author notes

  1. Riccardo Sacconi and Maria Vittoria Cicinelli contributed equally to this study and should be considered equivalent authors

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Medicine, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy

    Riccardo Sacconi, Maria Vittoria Cicinelli, Enrico Borrelli, Eleonora Corbelli, Marco Casaluci, Francesco Bandello & Giuseppe Querques

  2. Division of head and neck, Ophthalmology Unit, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy

    Riccardo Sacconi, Maria Vittoria Cicinelli, Enrico Borrelli, Eleonora Corbelli, Marco Casaluci, Francesco Bandello & Giuseppe Querques

  3. Centro Italiano Macula, Rome, Italy

    Maria Cristina Savastano, Marco Rispoli & Bruno Lumbroso

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  1. Riccardo Sacconi
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  2. Maria Vittoria Cicinelli
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Correspondence to Giuseppe Querques.

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Conflict of interest

Riccardo Sacconi, Maria Vittoria Cicinelli, Enrico Borrelli, Maria Cristina Savastano, Marco Rispoli, Bruno Lumbroso, Eleonora Corbelli, and Marco Casaluci certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest (such as honoraria; educational grants; participation in speakers’ bureaus; membership, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, or other equity interest; and expert testimony or patent-licensing arrangements), or non-financial interest (such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, knowledge or beliefs) in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.

Francesco Bandello is a consultant for Alcon (Fort Worth, TX, USA), Alimera Sciences (Alpharetta, GA, USA), Allergan Inc. (Irvine, CA, USA), Farmila-Thea (Clermont-Ferrand, France), Bayer Shering-Pharma (Berlin, Germany), Bausch And Lomb (Rochester, NY, USA), Genentech (San Francisco, CA, USA), Hoffmann-La-Roche (Basel, Switzerland), Novagali Pharma (Évry, France), Novartis (Basel, Switzerland), Sanofi-Aventis (Paris, France), Thrombogenics (Heverlee, Belgium), Zeiss (Dublin, USA).

Giuseppe Querques is a consultant for Alimera Sciences (Alpharetta, GA, USA), Allergan Inc. (Irvine, CA, USA), Amgen (Thousand Oaks, USA), Bayer Shering-Pharma (Berlin, Germany), Heidelberg (Germany), KBH (Chengdu; China), LEH Pharma (London, UK), Lumithera (Poulsbo; USA), Novartis (Basel, Switzerland), Sandoz (Berlin, Germany), Sifi (Catania, Italy), Sooft-Fidea (Abano, Italy), Zeiss (Dublin, USA).

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This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the (place name of institution and/or national research committee) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Sacconi, R., Cicinelli, M.V., Borrelli, E. et al. Haller’s vessels patterns in non-neovascular age-related macular degeneration. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol 258, 2163–2171 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00417-020-04769-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00417-020-04769-7

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