Microvascular abnormalities on optical coherence tomography angiography in macular edema associated with branch retinal vein occlusion

Purpose To determine the ability of optical coherence tomography (OCT) angiography to image the microvascular structures compared with fluorescein angiography (FA) in patients with macular edema associated with branch retinal vein occlusion (BRVO). Design Retrospective, observational, consecutive case series. Methods Twenty-eight eyes of 27 patients (14 men, 13 women; mean age, 68.4 years) with macular edema associated with BRVO were enrolled. Simultaneous OCT angiography and FA were performed in all patients to evaluate the microvascular abnormalities and nonperfused areas. Results OCT angiography detected nonperfused areas in 28 eyes and FA in 18 eyes. The respective findings of superficial capillary telangiectasias by OCT angiography and FA were 13 and 11 eyes, for deep capillary telangiectasias 28 eyes and 11 eyes, for collateral vessels 18 eyes and 16 eyes, and for microaneurysms 13 eyes and 14 eyes. OCT angiography facilitated differential layer analysis of microaneurysms and collaterals as well as capillary telangiectasias in the retina. Conclusions OCT angiography can visualize microvascular abnormalities equally well or better than FA in eyes with BRVO. Multimodal imaging using OCT angiography and FA can be a powerful tool to evaluate the pathology in BRVO.