PREFERRED RETINAL LOCUS LOCATIONS IN AGE-RELATED MACULAR DEGENERATION.

Abstract

An evaluation of the preferred retinal locus (PRL) in patients with age-related macular degeneration and a central scotoma is becoming a standard of care in the practice of low-vision rehabilitation. This is a retrospective study of PRL specifications and whether they have a correlation with the best-corrected visual acuities of patients with age-related macular degeneration. Seventy-two patients with macular degeneration (144 eyes) were included in the study. The PRLs were evaluated monocularly with a scanning laser ophthalmoscope. Each PRL's location, the fovea-PRL distance, the PRL edge of the lesion distance, and PRL stability were measured with the built-in caliper of the ophthalmoscope. The most frequent location of a PRL was nasal (29.2%). The PRL was located in the left visual field of 34.0% of the patients. The best-corrected visual acuity values were positively correlated with the lesion's vertical and horizontal dimensions, as well as its surface area, the PRL-fovea distance, the PRL border of the lesion distance, and PRL stability. The clinical PRL evaluation methodology that we describe can be used to facilitate making decisions on how to provide best visual rehabilitation to patients with a central scotoma.