ICG Angiography for retinal diseases

This ICG angiogram shows a cluster of polyps in a patient with bleeding at the macula. PDT laser treatment was done at the circled area

Many  patients wonder why they need extensive testing for retinal diseases. This is because there are many changes in the retina cannot be seen with our eyes alone  and in order to examine  the blood vessels in the retina, a test called angiography is needed. There are two types of special dyes used for retinal angiography: Fluorescein and indocyanine green.

ICG Angiography is essential to diagnose PCV

This dye is injected into your vein in your arm and a special camera takes photographs of the dye flowing through your retinal blood vessels. This is something like the angiogram done for heart attack patients to look for blockages in the blood vessels supplying the heart. Today,   I would like to focus on a special  green dye called indocyanine green(ICG) that is very useful to diagnose a type of AMD called polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (PCV). PCV is very common in our Asian population and this test  very useful for my patients. Once we pick up the abnormalities we are able to do a special targeted cold laser treatment called Photodynamic laser therapy (PDT).  PDT is the best treatment for PCV compared to Anti-VEGF injections into the eyeball.

Heidelberg Spectralis Retinal Angiography

We now use the latest retinal imaging machine  that uses a special camera  with laser  that is able to obtain high speed movies  with higher contrast and  greater detail for ICG angiography. This therefore enables greater accuracy in diagnosis and better targeted treatment for AMD patients. The whole test is over in 20 minutes and we can visualize the results at once.The risks of the test are very small and it is painless.

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day!