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  • Decreased Fundus Autofluorescence and Visual Acuity in Stargardt Disease

    By Jean Shaw
    Selected By: Andrew P. Schachat, MD
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    Journal Highlights

    Ophthalmology Retina, November/December 2017

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    Kong et al. set out to investigate the association between visual acuity (VA) and areas of decreased fundus autofluorescence (AF) in patients with recent-onset Stargardt disease. They found a small rate of VA loss per year, dependent on the level of VA at first visit and the location of lesion growth and not significantly associated with the rate of increase in areas of de­creased AF.

    For this study, the researchers evalu­ated 64 patients (124 eyes) drawn from the ProgStar (Progression of atrophy secondary to Stargardt disease) study. All were ≥ 6 years of age (median, 22.5 years) and had experienced symptom onset ≤ 2 years before the first study visit.

    VA was measured as best-corrected or presenting VA; more than half the eyes had a VA worse than 20/70 at baseline, and 14.5% were > 20/200. In addition, 94% already had areas of decreased AF (DAF) in their images.

    The overall VA change rate was 0.054 per year; faster rates of loss were observed in patients who were 20/30 to 20/70 at baseline as well as in those who were younger when symptoms first occurred. While the rate of VA loss was not significantly associated with the rate of increase in areas of definite­ly decreased AF (DDAF), questionably decreased AF (QDAF), or DAF, it was significantly associated with DAF in the fovea at baseline.

    The original article can be found here.