The macular photostress test in diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration
G. Wu, J. J. Weiter, S. Santos, L. Ginsburg and R. Villalobos
Beetham Eye Institute, Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215.
We propose the macular photostress test for the evaluation of macular
function in the office setting. Eighty eyes were tested and divided into
four diagnostic categories: background diabetic retinopathy, diabetic
macular edema, age-related macular degeneration, and normal. The recovery
times for the eyes with age-related macular degeneration were longer than
for eyes with macular edema (P = .03). Age-matched patients with
age-related macular degeneration had longer recovery times than did those
without age-related macular degeneration (P = .0001). A possible
explanation is that the prolonged recovery time in the eyes with
age-related macular degeneration reflects that the anatomic lesion is
located in the retinal pigment epithelium-photoreceptor complex. In
comparison, the eyes with macular edema, whose lesion is in the inner
retina and not the retinal pigment epithelium, show a less-prolonged
recovery time than the eyes with age-related macular degeneration.
