Intravitreal Aflibercept Injection for the Treatment of Submacular Vascularized Pigment Epithelial Detachment

Inclusion criteria

• ✓. A notch of irregularity associated with an orange-yellow round, oval, or bean-shaped elevation of the RPE with a smooth, convex surface is seen on examination and fundus photography (FP). Fluorescein angiography (FA) shows uniform staining of the PED with a well-defined margin, and more intense staining (hot-spot) for the focus of the CNV.
• ✓. A fibrovascular PED with occult neovascularization typically shows stippled hyperfluorescence in the early phase with increasing hyperfluorescent staining and leakage in later phases of FA and a variable surrounding margin. There may be RPE folds.
• ✓. Regarding PED with a component of retinal angiomatous proliferation (RAP), the early features on FP including intraretinal neovascularization (IRN) frequently with adjacent small retinal hemorrhages in its lateral expansion in an irregularly stellate pattern before the development of retinal-choroidal anastomosis and the eventual PED in the later phases. The investigator is required to perform indocyanine-green (ICG) angiography at baseline to establish a RAP lesion and to rule-out polypoidal vasculopathy lesions, since the FA images may not be distinct.
• ✓. The investigator must also search for other features associated with a PED indicating the presence of a vascular component, i.e. hemorrhage, exudates, and/or chorioretinal folds.
• ✓. The investigator must confirm the presence of a PED on FA/FP and OCT. Spectral Domain OCT will be utilized. Specifically, the Spectralis OCT manufactured by Heidleberg to maintain uniformity for all the sites. The PED height, SA, GLD, and volume will be measured from the OCT images. The characteristic OCT findings of the vascularized PED must be confirmed, including a distinct elevation of the highly hyperreflective RPE layer with mild backscattering of the underlying choroidal layer in the portion of the PED without any CNV. For the portion of the PED with underlying CNV, typical OCT findings consist of moderate hyperreflectivity contiguous to the overlying markedly hyperreflective detached RPE corresponding to the CNV that usually extends to the choroidal layer. Besides the OCT characteristics confirmation must be made on the FP/FA images of the vascularized PED, as outlined above in detail.