RESEARCH ARTICLE Retinal Thickening and Photoreceptor Loss in HIV Eyes without Retinitis

Purpose To determine the presence of structural changes in HIV retinae (i.e., photoreceptor density and retinal thickness in the macula) compared with age-matched HIV-negative controls. Methods Cohort of patients with known HIV under CART (combination Antiretroviral Therapy) treat-ment were examined with a flood-illuminated retinal AO camera to assess the cone photore-ceptor mosaic and spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) to assess retinal layers and retinal thickness. Results Twenty-four eyes of 12 patients (n = 6 HIV-positive and 6 HIV-negative) were imaged with the adaptive optics camera. In each of the regions of interest studied (nasal, temporal, supe-rior, inferior), the HIV group had significantly less mean cone photoreceptor density com-pared with age-matched controls (difference range, 4,308–6,872 cones/mm2). A different subset of forty eyes of 20 patients (n = 10 HIV-positive and 10 HIV-negative) was include