Ten Tenets of Fundus Autofluorescence
1. What is fundus autofluorescence? Fundus autofluorescence is a study of the topographic distribution of naturally occurring molecules in the human fundus. These molecules are called fluorophores. In principle, FAF is similar to fundus fluorescein angiography as both of them study the fluorescence pattern of molecules. However, the fluorophore molecules are naturally occurring compounds in the former while in later sodium fluorescein dye is injected. Hence FAF is a non-invasive imaging modality. 2. What are fluorophores? Fluorophores are molecules that emit fluorescence when excited by a suitable wavelength of light. Fluorophores are not exclusively present in the fundus and are distributed in various ocular tissue which includes the cornea, lens, uvea melanocyte, retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), and sclera.1,2 The knowledge about fluorophores other than fundus is still evolving. The commonly studied fundus fluorophores lipofuscin and melanin. 3. Lipofuscin and melanin Lipofuscin is
Dr. Kumar Saurabh · Dr. Suraj Mistry