Photostress recovery times in cases of central serous retinopathy.

Photostress recovery times were measured in 50 normal individuals in the age group 20-50 years and in 27 patients who had developed central serous retinopathy. A flash generator of a commercially available fundus camera was used to provide the appropriate stimulus. The results showed that photostress recovery times were grossly abnormal in patients with central serous retinopathy for the first few weeks after the onset of symptoms, but gradually returned to normal values by 5 months and remained so thereafter. In a few patients during the recovery phase a transient paradoxical response was noted, whereby the photostress recovery times became less than in the unaffected control eye.It appears that the use of a fundus camera to provide photostress stimulus has merit because the light source is subject only to slight variation in intensity, standardization of responses is possible and the technique can be employed on patients about to have fluorescein angiographic studies for diagnostic or documentation purposes.