Association of Irregular Pigment Epithelial Detachment in Central Serous Chorioretinopathy with Genetic Variants Implicated in Age-related Macular Degeneration

We evaluated phenotype and genotype correlation of central serous chorioretinopathy (CSC) patients with or without irregular pigment epithelial detachment (PED) on optical coherence tomography (OCT). For CSC, a flat, irregular protrusion of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) with hyper-reflective sub-RPE fluid on OCT was defined as an irregular PED. Participants were classified into 5 subgroups; (1) total CSC (n = 280) (2) CSC with irregular PED (n = 126) (3) CSC without irregular PED (n = 154) (4) typical choroidal neovascularization (CNV) (n = 203) and (5) polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (PCV) (n = 135). Ten known major AMD-associated single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were analyzed. Age, sex adjusted logistic regression was performed for the association between subgroups. Association analysis between CSC without irregular PED and CNV revealed that significant difference for rs10490924 in ARMS2, rs10737680 in CFH, and marginally significant difference for rs800292 in CFH. Between CSC without irregular PED and PCV, rs10490924, rs10737680, and rs800292 were significantly different. In contrast, CSC with irregular PED and CNV revealed no SNP showing significant difference. Between CSC with irregular PED and PCV, only rs10490924 was significantly different. CSC with irregular PED and CSC without irregular PED revealed significant difference for rs800292, and marginal difference for rs10737680. These findings suggest CSC patients with irregular PED are genetically different from those without irregular PED and may have genetic and pathophysiologic overlap with AMD patients.