Exudative Senile Maculopathy

Abstract

Seventy-one eyes with exudative senile maculopathy (hemorrhagic or serous detachment of the pigment epithelium in patients 50 years and older) were managed and studied with fluorescein angiography and treated with argon laser photocoagulation. Perifoveal-macular "horseshoe" treatment was done for foveal lesions and direct treatment was done for extrafoveal lesions. The prognosis for vision is comparatively reduced when the lesion is foveal rather than extrafoveal, when the detachment is hemorrhagic rather than serous, and when a subretinal neovascular membrane is present (as shown by fluorescein angiography preoperatively) rather than when it is absent. Postoperatively, patients were reevaluated and follow-up examinations with the use of fluorescein angiography were done.