Visual prognosis for symptomatic retinal arterial macroaneurysm.

PURPOSE: To study the visual prognosis in eyes with symptomatic retinal arterial macroaneurysm (RAM).

METHODS: Medical records were retrospectively reviewed for 62 patients (65 eyes) with symptomatic RAM.

RESULTS: The median visual acuity at presentation was 0.4 for eyes with vitreous hemorrhage (n=6), 0.01 for eyes with premacular hemorrhage (n=9), 0.1 for eyes with submacular hemorrhage without premacular hemorrhage (n=16), 0.02 for eyes with submacular hemorrhage with premacular hemorrhage (n=16), and 0.3 for eyes with macular edema (n=18). The median value of the final visual acuity was 0.6 for vitreous hemorrhage, 0.7 for premacular hemorrhage, 0.1 for submacular hemorrhage without premacular hemorrhage, 0.1 for submacular hemorrhage with premacular hemorrhage, and 0.5 for macular edema.

CONCLUSIONS: The visual prognosis for eyes with symptomatic RAM depends on the macular pathology. Eyes with vitreous hemorrhage or premacular hemorrhage recover good vision, while the vision in those with submacular hemorrhage with or without premacular hemorrhage generally remains poor. New interventions including submacular surgery or pneumatic displacement of submacular hematoma should be evaluated in a future study in terms of visual prognosis for these eyes.