Retinal Development in Infants and Young Children With Albinism: Evidence for Plasticity in Early Childhood.

Meeting Presentation: Presented at the 2016 Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meeting and at the 2015 British Isles Paediatric, Ophthalmology and Strabismus Association meeting.

Purpose: To investigate the time course of foveal development after birth in infants with albinism.

Design: Prospective, comparative cohort optical coherence tomography study.

Methods: Thirty-six children with albinism were recruited. All participants were between 0 and 6 years of age and were seen at Leicester Royal Infirmary. A total of 181 mixed cross-sectional and longitudinal optical coherence tomography examinations were obtained, which were analyzed for differences in retinal development in comparison to 297 cross-sectional control examinations.

Results: Normal retinal development involves migration of the inner retinal layers (IRLs) away from the fovea, migration of the cone photoreceptors into the fovea, and elongation of the outer retinal layers (ORLs) over time. In contrast to controls where IRL migration from the fovea was almost completed at birth, a significant degree of IRL migration was taking place after birth in albinism, before arresting prematurely at 40 months postmenstrual age (PMA). This resulted in a significantly thicker central macular thickness in albinism (Δ = 83.8 ± 6.1, P < .0001 at 69 months PMA). There was evidence of ongoing foveal ORL elongation in albinism, although reduced in amplitude compared with control subjects after 21 months PMA (Δ = -17.3 ± 4.3, P < .0001).

Conclusions: We have demonstrated evidence of ongoing retinal development in young children with albinism, albeit at a reduced rate and magnitude compared with control subjects. The presence of a period of retinal plasticity in early childhood raises the possibility that treatment modalities, which aim to improve retinal development, could potentially optimize visual function in albinism.