Purpose: We report a case of acute posterior multifocal placoid pigment epitheliopathy (APMPPE), which was difficult to differentiate from posterior pole-type Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada (VKH) disease because the lesions were mainly located in the macula bilaterally.
Case report: A 33-year-old man presented with rapid bilateral loss of vision. Fundoscopy revealed yellow-white subretinal lesions in the posterior pole of both eyes. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) revealed the presence of subretinal fluid with a subretinal septum. After initiation of systemic steroids, OCT revealed that the amount of subretinal fluid decreased immediately. However, vision loss was less responsive to the therapy, and OCT revealed partial reorganization of the inner segment/outer segment (IS/OS) line in the bilateral macular areas after therapy.
Discussion: In our case, the location of the macular lesions made it difficult to differentiate APMPPE from VKH disease by fluorescein angiography. OCT images showed VKH disease-like findings of serous retinal detachment with a subretinal septum. The outer nuclear layer disappeared and the IS/OS line in the affected area was disorganized in the acute stage of the disease. In this case, the rapid loss of vision was specific to the onset pattern of APMPPE, and the slow response to therapy was very different from the response typically observed in VKH disease. Thus, careful consideration of the clinical course is important for diagnosing APMPPE.
Keywords: Acute posterior multifocal placoid pigment epitheliopathy; Optical coherence tomography; Pigment epitheliopathy; Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease.