[Retinal tubulation].

The aim of this study is to present a new retinal structure which is detectable on OCT scans - outer retinal tubulations (ORT). The discovery of these structures is related to more and more perfect retinal imaging using the spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD OCT). Outer retinal tubulations were first described by Zweifel et al. in the year 2009 in patients with age-related macular degeneration. These branching tubular structures are localized in the outer nuclear layer of the retina. They are of circular or ovoid shape, with hyporeflectivity in the center, their borders are hyperreflective. Retinal tubulations are mostly seen together with choroid neovasculare membrane or with retinal pigment epithelium atrophy. Typically, they are adjacent to the area of wide damage of the outer retinal structure combined with relatively good preserved photoreceptor layer (respectively junctions between inner and outer photoreceptors segments), often they overlap the area of subretinal fibrosis or RPE (retinal pigment epithelium) damage. In eyes with anti-VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) treatment, they do appear in the area, where, before the treatment, the intraretinal fluid was present. These structures may simulate CME or the presence of subretinal fluid, so their determination plays an important role in the indications of next anti-VEGF drugs applications. Their non-detection may cause unneeded re-applications of anti-VEGF drugs into the viterous. This study was presented as a lecture at the Congress of the Czech VitreoRetinal Society in Dolní Morava (Czech Republic, E.U.) in the year 2014.