An update of multimodal imaging in white dot syndrome

Abstract

The white dot syndromes are a group of phenotypically similar disorders characterized by multiple lesions at the level of the outer retina, retinal pigment epithelium, and choroid. Common white dot syndromes whose imaging modalities have been described in this article are multiple evanescent white dot syndrome, acute posterior multifocal placoid pigment epitheliopathy, acute zonal occult outer retinopathy, multifocal choroiditis and panuveitis, punctate inner choroidopathy, serpiginous choroiditis, and birdshot chorioretinopathy. The various imaging modalities help us to better understand the pathophysiology of the various entities and help in diagnosing, monitoring, and prognosticating them. Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) is a comparatively newer tool that helps us to visualize lesions in the choroid that correlate with indocyanine green angiography (ICGA) findings. Even though it is of limited value and cannot replace ICGA, it had gained considerable interest among ophthalmologists. Similarly, the noninvasive nature of modalities such as fundus autofluorescence and OCT makes them appealing and preferable over invasive techniques such as fundus fluorescein angiography and ICGA.

Keywords

• acute posterior multifocal placoid pigment epitheliopathy
• acute zonal occult outer retinopathy
• birdshot choroidoretinopathy
• fundus fluorescein angiography
• imaging modalities
• indocyanine green angiography
• multifocal choroiditis and panuveitis
• multiple evanescent white dot syndrome
• optical coherence tomography
• optical coherence tomography angiography
• punctate inner choroidopathy
• serpiginous choroiditis
• white dot syndrome