Abstract
Purpose: To investigate concordance in symptom onset, area of dark autofluorescence (DAF), and growth rate (GR) between Stargardt disease siblings at an age-matched time point. Methods: In this retrospective longitudinal study of sibling pairs with identical biallelic ABCA4 variants, age at symptom onset, best-corrected visual acuity, atrophy area, and effective radius of DAF on ultra-widefield fundus autofluorescence were recorded. Absolute intersibling differences for both eyes were compared with absolute interocular differences using the Mann-Whitney test. Results: Overall 39 patients from 19 families were recruited. In 16 families, age-matched best-corrected visual acuity and DAF were compared between siblings. In 8 families, DAF GR was compared. The median (range) absolute difference in age at symptom onset between siblings was 3 (0-35) years. Absolute intersibling differences in age-matched best-corrected visual acuity were greater than interocular differences (P = 0.01). Similarly, absolute intersibling differences in DAF area and radius were greater than interocular differences (P = 0.04 for area and P = 0.001 for radius). Differences between absolute interocular and intersibling GR were not statistically significant (P = 0.44 for area GR and P = 0.61 for radius GR). Conclusion: There was significant discordance in age-matched best-corrected visual acuity and DAF beyond the expected limits of interocular asymmetry. Lack of significant intersibling differences in GR warrants further investigation.
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
1-1-2022
Volume
42
Issue
8
PubMed ID
35344533
Publication Title
Retina
Publisher
Wolters Kluwer
School
School of Science
RAS ID
52715
Funders
National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia / Macular Disease Foundation Australia / Perth Children's Hospital-Telethon research grant / McCusker Charitable Foundation (F.K.C.) / Miocevich Retina Fellowship (R.C.H.J.) / Retina Australia (J.A.T., T.L., J.N.D.R., T.L.M.)
Grant Number
NHMRC Numbers : GNT1116360, GNT1188694, GNT1054712, MRF1142962
Grant Link
http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/GNT1116360 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/1142962
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
First Page
1545
Last Page
1559
Comments
Jeffery, R. C. H., Thompson, J. A., Lo, J., Lamey, T. M., McLaren, T. L., De Roach, J. N., ... & Chen, F. K. (2022). Sibling concordance in symptom onset and atrophy growth rates in Stargardt disease using ultra-widefield fundus autofluorescence. Retina, 42(8), 1545-1559. https://doi.org/10.1097/IAE.0000000000003477