PIGMENT EPITHELIAL WINDOWS AND DRUSEN - ANIMAL-MODEL

Abstract

Aging rhesus monkeys, both controls and those undergoing long-term administration of investigational oral contraceptive steroids, developed widespread hyperfluorescent dots at the posterior pole. The dots were considered to represent drusen. Histologic (including EM) study showed the drusen in some of the animals to be almost exclusively pigment epithelial windows produced by a lipoidal degeneration of the pigment epithelial cells. The experiment provided a fortuitous model for direct correlation of clinical and histologic observations of myriad uniform, tiny, depigmented, hyperfluorescent, nonleaking spots at the level of the retinal pigment epithelium.