2020–2021 BCSC Basic and Clinical Science Course™
12 Retina and Vitreous
Part III: Selected Therapeutic Topics
Chapter 19: Laser Therapy for Posterior Segment Diseases
Transpupillary Thermotherapy
Transpupillary thermotherapy (TTT) acts in a subthreshold manner by slightly raising the choroidal temperature, thus causing minimal thermal damage to the RPE and overlying retina. TTT is administered with an infrared laser (810 nm) using beam sizes from 0.8 mm to 3.0 mm, power settings between 250 mW and 750 mW, and a 1-minute exposure time. For choroidal melanoma, TTT may be considered as a stand-alone treatment for tumors less than 4 mm thick, but for thicker tumors, a combination of TTT and plaque radiotherapy results in better local tumor control than TTT alone.
Excerpted from BCSC 2020-2021 series: Section 10 - Glaucoma. For more information and to purchase the entire series, please visit https://www.aao.org/bcsc.