Detection of superficial and buried optic disc drusen with swept-source optical coherence tomography

BACKGROUND: To detect the superficial and buried optic disc drusen (ODD) with swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT). METHODS: Retrospective cross-sectional study. Twenty patients (age 18–74 years) diagnosed with ODD via B-scan ultrasonography were analysed. All patients underwent color fundus photography (CFP), B-scan ultrasonography, fundus autofluorescence (FAF), and SS-OCT. We defined each hyporeflective signal mass of SS-OCT as an ODD, recorded its location and relationship with Bruch’s membrane opening (BMO), and other ophthalmic imaging characteristics. RESULTS: Twenty (33 eyes) patients had 54 ODDs in all, except one eye did not show abnormal optic disc findings on SS-OCT. We classified ODD into three categories: ODD above BMO, ODD across BMO, and ODD below BMO. The ODDs across BMO were the largest, followed by ODDs below BMO, and those above BMO. The location of the ODDs: One (1.9%) was in the border tissue of Elschnig, 6 (11.1%) might span across the lamina cribrosa, 16 (29.6%) were above BMO located in the neuroepithelial layer, 9 (16.7%) spanned across BMO located near the center of the optic disc, 18 (33.3%) were below BMO located near the center of the optic disc, 4 (7.4%) were below BMO located within the optic disc rim. When the anterior margin was ≥ 100 μm from the BMO, clear autofluorescence could be seen. CONCLUSION: Multimodal imaging provided a deeper understanding of ODD. SS-OCT illustrated more details about the relationship between the posterior surface of ODD, BMO and the lamina cribrosa.