COVID-19-Related Retinal Micro-vasculopathy - A Review of Current Evidence

center dot ABSTRACT:center dot PURPOSE: To evaluate the occurrence of retinal microvasculopathy in patients infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) and who developed coronavirus disease (COVID-19). center dot DESIGN: Systematic review and meta-analysis. center dot METHODS: The Pubmed and Embase databases were comprehensively searched to identify studies that reported retina vascular changes in eyes with COVID-19. Two independent reviewers selected papers and extracted data for analysis. Data of interest were extracted and analyzed in RevMan Web versions 3.3. Quality of evidence was assessed using the National Institute of Health quality assessment tool for a case-control study. center dot RESULTS: Thirty-one studies reporting on 1373 subjects (972 COVID-19 and 401 controls) were included. Only case-control studies were included in the pooled analysis. There was a significantly higher likelihood of retinal microvasculopathy in subjects with COVID-19 compared to controls (odds ratio [95% confidence interval], 8.86 [2.54-27.53], P < .01). Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) revealed reduced vessel density and enlarged foveal avascular zone in subjects with COVID-19 compared to controls. center dot CONCLUSIONS: The results suggested that COVID19-related retinal microvasculopathy is a significant ocular manifestation of COVID-19 and may herald future retinal complications. These microvascular impairments might have occurred antecedent to clinically visible changes and could be detected earlier by OCTA. These findings are significant, due to the large numbers with COVID-19, and need to be recognized by ophthalmologists as a potential long-term sequalae of the disease. (Am J Ophthalmol 2022;235: 98-110. (c) 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)