Outer retinopathy does not refer to a specific type of retinal disease. Patients with outer retinopathy often have abnormal vision symptoms, however, no positive signs can be found with conventional routine eye examination. And the diseases are often labeled “occult”. In recent years, optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been widely used in clinical practice. It has been found that many so-called “occult” diseases are actually caused by structural abnormalities of the outer retina. The causes of structural abnormalities are diverse, and the treatments and disease outcomes are also different. Therefore, it is necessary for clinical ophthalmologists to get detailed medical history, make diagnosis and differential diagnosis based on multi-model imaging, rather than roughly name it as “outer retinopathy”. With the development of OCT imaging technology, higher resolution images reveal the finer structure of retinal tissue, allowing us to have a deep understanding of the disease, thus improving diagnosis and treatment in clinical practice.

Citation： Yu Suqin. A brief talk about the diagnosis of “outer retinopathy” — based on the recognition and understanding of optical coherence tomography images. Chinese Journal of Ocular Fundus Diseases, 2021, 37(12): 911-914. doi: 10.3760/cma.j.cn511434-20211210-00696 Copy