Identifiable Peripheral Retinal Lesions Using Ultra-Widefield Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscope and Its Usefulness in Myopic Patients

Purpose: To investigate identifiable peripheral retinal lesions in patients with myopia or high myopia and to evaluate the useful-ness of ultra-widefield scanning laser ophthalmoscope in retina clinic settings. Methods: We evaluated fundus images of 149 patients acquired using an ultra-widefield scanning laser ophthalmoscope. Manual fundus examination by a retinal specialist was performed and sensitivity and specificity were calculated by comparing the findings of the two different fundus examination methods. Results: Variable peripheral retinal lesions were observed: lattice degeneration (24.1 % in myopia, 36.6 % in high myopia), white without pressure (17.7 % in myopia, 20.7 % in high myopia), retinal break (5.1 % in myopia, 7.5 % in high myopia) and retinal de-tachment (1.3 % in myopia, 4.2 % in high myopia). The incidence of lattice degeneration was significantly higher in myopic eyes than in highly myopic eyes (p = 0.043). The examination sensitivities were as follows: lattice degeneration (84.2 % in myopia, 91.0 % in high myopia), white without pressure (100.0 % in both myopia and high myopia), retinal break (75.0 % in myopia, 43.8% in high myopia) and retinal detachment (100.0 % in myopia, 66.7 % in high myopia). The examination specificities were 100.0 % in all cases. Conclusions: Diagnostic sensitivities of ultra-widefield scanning laser ophthalmoscope were 90.8 % in patients with myopia, 91.0 % in patients with high myopia and 90.9 % in totally myopic patients, which were relatively high values. Therefore, the ul