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Purpose: To investigate the role of fundus autofluorescence (FAF) imaging in the diagnosis of macular telangiectasia type 2 (MacTel) and to describe disease-associated FAF patterns and their origin., Design: Cross-sectional multicenter study METHODS: FAF images were collected from the multicenter MacTel Natural History Observation and Registry Study. In a first qualitative approach, common FAF phenotypes were defined and correlated with multimodal imaging. We then evaluated how many eyes showed FAF changes, and temporal vs nasal asymmetry of FAF changes was graded. Finally, 100 eyes of MacTel patients and 100 control eyes (50 normal eyes and 50 eyes with other macular diseases) were combined and 2 masked graders assessed the presence of MacTel based on FAF images alone., Results: The study included 807 eyes of 420 patients (33 eyes were excluded owing to poor image quality). Loss of macular pigment, cystoid spaces, pigment plaques, neovascular membranes, and ectatic vascular changes commonly caused characteristic changes on FAF images. All MacTel patients had macular FAF changes in at least 1 eye. In 95% of eyes, these changes were more pronounced temporally than nasally. Common FAF patterns were increased (60%) and mixed/decreased FAF (38%) and/or visibility of vascular changes such as blunted vessels or ectatic capillaries (79%). Based on those features, high diagnostic performance was achieved for detection of the disease based on FAF alone (Youden index up to 0.91)., Conclusions: The study demonstrates that MacTel is consistently associated with disease-specific changes on FAF imaging. Those changes are typically more pronounced in the temporal parafovea., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate risk factors in patients with macular telangiectasia (MacTel) 2A in an Asian population. This was a hospital-based case-control study., Methods: We reviewed the case records of patients in our hospital, diagnosed as MacTel 2A over a 3-year period from April 2011 to March 2014. Controls were selected from patients seen in the hospital at the same time for visual defects after matching for age and sex. A multivariate logistic regression model was constructed using the variables that showed a statistically significant association (P < 0.05) with MacTel 2A in the univariate analysis., Results: The mean age of the patients with MacTel 2A was 58.63 years. A majority (76; 73.8%) of the patients were female. Of the patients with MacTel 2A, 61 (59.2%) patients had diabetes mellitus, and 50 (48.5%) revealed hypertension. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed the presence of diabetes mellitus to be the risk factor with the highest odds ratio (OR) of 5.7 followed by hypertension with an OR of 2.6. Binary logistic regression showed hypermetropia to have a greater risk factor compared to emmetropia, OR 2.64., Conclusion: Our case-control study revealed that MacTel 2A is significantly associated with systemic diseases. Diabetes mellitus was found to have the strongest association with MacTel 2A, showing a high OR of 5.7. Systemic hypertension followed by an OR of 2.6. Compared to emmetropia, hypermetropia was significantly associated with MacTel 2A. There could be a genetic link between the two. Determining risk factors draws us close to the goal of identifying the etiopathogenesis of MacTel 2A.