Acute Macular Neuroretinopathy after Coronavirus Disease 2019 Infection: Clinical Characteristics and Associated Factors

Abstract

Objective or PurposeAcute macular neuroretinopathy (AMN) is a rare, poorly understood retinal disease that affects the outer retina. Recent studies reported the onset of AMN is associated with COVID-19 infection. However, it still lacks thorough evaluation regarding the clinical features of AMN after COVID-19 infection. DesignRetrospective cohort study. ParticipantsThis study involved online registration of patients who were diagnosed with AMN after rapid antigen or PCR tests confirmed COVID-19 infections from December 2022 to March 2023. MethodsWe interviewed all patients and completed an evaluation survey that recorded age, sex, menstruation pattern, medical history, doses of COVID-19 vaccination, symptom onset (days after fever onset), symptoms, and treatment measures. The association between clinical characteristics and baseline visual acuity was investigated. Main Outcome MeasuresDemographic and clinical characteristics of AMN after COVID-19 infection. ResultsA total of 116 eyes from 66 patients were included in the present study. The average age was 30.4 ± 6.7, and 81.8% of patients were female. The average time of ocular symptom onset was 2.62 ± 1.88 days after fever onset. Scotomas (87.9%) were the most common symptoms reported by patients, whereas 25.9% and 1.7% of eyes had blurry vision and photopsia. 80.2%, 60.3%, 26.7%, 10.3%, and 3.4% of eyes showed ellipsoid zone (EZ) disruption, hyper-reflectivity of outer nuclear layer (ONL), hyper-reflectivity of Henle layer, hyper-reflectivity of outer plexiform layer (OPL), and macular edema, respectively. A history of smoking (Coef. =0.12, 95%CI: [0.00, 0.24]), macular edema (Coef. =0.14, 95%CI: [0.00, 0.88]), hyper-reflectivity of OPL (Coef. =0.16, 95%CI: [0.08, 0.24]), hyper-reflectivity of Henle layer (Coef. =0.08, 95%CI: [0.03, 0.14]), and EZ disruption (Coef. =0.07, 95%CI: [0.00, 0.13]) were associated with worse LogMAR visual acuity at baseline. Conclusions and RelevanceAMN after COVID-19 infection is more common in young females. Hyper-reflectivity of ONL and EZ disruption are the most common OCT features of AMN. Macular edema, hyper-reflectivity of OPL, hyper-reflectivity of the Henle layer, EZ disruption, and a history of smoking are associated with worse visual acuity at baseline.