BULBOSITIES AND INTERVORTEX VENOUS ANASTOMOSIS IN VENOUS OVERLOAD CHOROIDOPATHY MASQUERADING AS POLYPOIDAL CHOROIDAL VASCULOPATHY.

Purpose: To describe a patient with venous overload choroidopathy in whom venous bulbosities masqueraded as polyps and intervortex venous anastomosis mimicked a branching vascular network, giving the appearance of polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy.

Methods: The patient had complete ophthalmic examination including indocyanine green angiography and optical coherence tomography. Venous bulbosities were defined on indocyanine green angiography as focal dilations in which the diameter of the dilation is two times that of the host vessel.

Results: A 75-year-old woman presented with combined subretinal and subretinal pigment epithelium hemorrhages in the right eye. During indocyanine green angiography, focal nodular hyperfluorescent lesions connected to a network of vessels were observed, which looked like polyps and branching vascular network in polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy. In both eyes, the midphase angiogram had multifocal choroidal vascular hyperpermeability. There was late-phase placoid staining nasal to the nerve in the right eye. During enhanced depth imaging-optical coherence tomography evaluation, there were no retinal pigment epithelium elevations that would be expected with polyps or branching vascular network in the right eye. A double-layer sign was seen corresponding to the placoid area of staining. Diagnosis of venous overload choroidopathy and choroidal neovascularization membrane was made. She was treated with intravitreal antivascular endothelial growth factor injections for the choroidal neovascularization membrane.

Conclusion: Indocyanine green angiography findings in venous overload choroidopathy may mimic polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy, but differentiation is essential because it has implications for treatment. Similar findings may have been misinterpreted in the past and may have previously contributed to conflicting clinical and histopathologic descriptions of polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy.