gms | German Medical Science

To assess the clinical usefulness and relevance of fluorescein angiography (FA) and indocyanine green angiography (ICGA) in the investigation of retinal and chorioretinal disorders and assess specifically in what conditions they may add useful information.

A systematic review of the literature was performed using PubMed and confined to articles in English or that included an English abstract.

This systematic review suggests that FA gives diagnostic support to most of the retinal pathology. The introduction of new instruments allowed the possibility to higher resolution. ICGA is more recently introduce and its properties allowed a better study of choroidal circulation and diseases. It is higly recomended for (1) identification of polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy, (2) occult choroidal neovascularization, (3) neovascularization associated with pigment epithelial detachments, and (4) recurrent choroidal neovascular membranes. and the use of different instruments created some differnces in interpreting. It is also highly recommended ICG for (1) identification of polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy, (2) occult choroidal neovascularization, (3) neovascularization associated with pigment epithelial detachments, and (4) recurrent choroidal neovascular membranes. It is also recommend with some enthusiasm for identifying feeder vessels in age-related macular degeneration, choroidal neovascular membranes, chronic central serous retinopathy, multiple evanescent white dot syndrome, vasculitis, acute multifocal placoid pigment epitheliopathy, Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada syndrome, macular lesions associated with angioid streaks, and birdshot retinopathy.

FA and ICG are well established technique. They are suggested for retinal and chorioretinal disorders However no published randomized controlled clinical trials show any benefit to the use of FA and ICG in the management of any specific ocular disease.