Drusen and Disciform Macular Detachment and Degeneration

Follow-up studies on 200 patients who had macular drusen were done for an average of four years. Loss of central vision was caused by disciform detachment of the pigment epithelium and retina, or less often by geographic atrophy of the pigment epithelium and retina. The average age of onset of loss of central vision in the first eye was 66 years and in the second eye 70 years. No clinical fluorescein angiographic or electrophysiologic criteria were found to differentiate patients with familial from those with so-called senile drusen. probably all patients with macular drusen have the same autosomal dominant heredodegenerative disease, which rarely causes significant loss of central vision prior to the sixth and seventh decades of life. Fifty-three patients were treated with photocoagulation, the value of which is still uncertain.