E-Mail karger@karger.com Original Paper Ophthalmologica 2014;231:37–44 DOI: 10.1159/000354551 Relationship between Visual Acuity and Spectral Domain Optical Coherence Tomography Retinal Parameters in Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration Tina Ristau a Pearse A. Keane b Alexander C. Walsh d Alicia Engin a Nils Mokwa a Bernd Kirchhof a SriniVas R. Sadda c Sandra Liakopoulos a a Cologne Image Reading Center, Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital of Cologne, Cologne, Germany; b NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Ophthalmology, Moorfields Eye Hospital, NHS Foundation Trust and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, London, UK; c Doheny Image Reading Center, Doheny Eye Institute, and d Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Calif., USA VA and retinal and subretinal morphological changes in NVAMD. Message: Atrophy of the outer retina is an impor- tant correlate for lower VA in NVAMD. © 2013 S. Karger AG, Basel Introduction Until anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapy became available and was demonstrated to signifi- cantly increase the functional outcome in patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) [1, 2], AMD was considered the leading cause of blindness in the elderly in the developed world [3]. Recently, high reso- lution imaging instruments such as spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) became available to help us better understand the pathophysiology, morphology and structure-function relationships in this complex disease. Not surprisingly, SD-OCT is increasingly used in the daily care and research of patients with neovascular AMD [4–6]. Visual acuity (VA) loss in neovascular AMD is ex- plained partially by the growth of new vessels in the sub- Key Words Optical coherence tomography · Visual acuity · Age-related macular degeneration · Fluorescein angiography Abstract Purpose: Relationship between spectral domain optical co- herence tomography (SD-OCT) and visual acuity (VA) in neo- vascular age-related macular degeneration (NVAMD). Pro- cedures: VA and SD-OCTs of 64 treatment-naive eyes with NVAMD were retrospectively collected at baseline and 1 year (n = 30). Retinal and subretinal spaces were manually ana- lyzed. Volume and thickness measurements were correlated with VA. Results: At baseline, lower VA correlated with in- creased volume of subretinal hyperreflective material (R = 0.4, p < 0.001) and with decreased volume of the photore- ceptor layer (PRL, R = –0.4, p < 0.01). At 1 year, lower VA cor- related with decreased volume of the retina (R = –0.7, p < 0.001), outer nuclear layer (R = –0.6, p < 0.05) and PRL (R = –0.7, p < 0.001). Decrease in VA after 1 year correlated with a decrease in PRL (R = 0.4, p < 0.05). Conclusions: Quan- titative analysis of SD-OCT revealed correlations between Received: April 16, 2013 Accepted after revision: July 10, 2013 Published online: October 2, 2013 Ophthalmologica Sandra Liakopoulos, MD Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital of Cologne Kerpener Strasse 92, DE–50924 Cologne (Germany) E-Mail sandra.liakopoulos  @  uk-koeln.de © 2013 S. Karger AG, Basel 0030–3755/13/2311–0037$38.00/0 www.karger.com/oph Downloaded by: UCL 144.82.108.120 - 2/26/2015 3:40:05 PM