West Nile Virus Chorioretinitis With Foveal Involvement: Evolution of Lesions on Optical Coherence Tomography

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 bestcorrected 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.