West Nile Virus Chorioretinitis With Foveal Involvement

Abstract

Purpose:

To describe the clinical course of foveal West Nile virus (WNV) chorioretinitis with longitudinal spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) imaging.

Methods:

Case report.

Results:

A 41-year-old man with diabetes mellitus presented with flashes and floaters of both eyes (OU) and decreased vision of the right eye (OD) 2 weeks after being discharged from a local hospital. He had been treated for WNV meningoencephalitis, and he recovered systemically with supportive therapy. Ophthalmic examination revealed WNV chorioretinitis bilaterally, with predominantly foveal involvement OD. His best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) was 8/200 OD and 20/20 of the left eye (OS). Spectral domain optical coherence tomography revealed 2 distinct lesion types—the “classic” outer retinal lesion and an intraretinal lesion. Both lesions had associated disruption of the normal outer hyperreflective retinal layers on SD-OCT. Longitudinal SD-OCT over the ensuing 6 weeks revealed a gradual reconstitution of these layers, with BCVA concurrently improving to 20/40 OD.

Conclusion:

We describe the consecutive findings seen on SD-OCT of retinal lesions in WNV chorioretinitis. The tomographic natural history of these lesions involved reconstitution of OCT deficits, with corresponding improvement in functional visual status.