AIM: To investigate the application of rapid diagnosis and classification of retinal artery occlusion(RAO)by multicolor imaging(MCI)with optical coherence tomography(OCT).

METHODS: Totally 19 patients(19 eyes)who were diagnosed with RAO in our hospital were retrospectively analyzed. All of the patients were diagnosed of RAO after ophthalmologic examination, including 13 eyes of central retinal artery occlusion(CRAO), 5 eyes of branch retinal artery occlusion(BRVO)and 1 eye of RAO with sparing of cilioretinal artery. The best corrected visual acuity, slit lamp, OCT, MCI, FFA and visual field were performed on the patients, and the examination results and image data were analyzed.

RESULTS: Totally 12(63%)eyes showed dullness or disappearance of pupil response to light, 16(84%)eyes showed total or partial paleness and edema in the posterior pole of retina, and 10(53%)eyes showed narrowing of retinal artery by slit-lamp examination. FFA examination was performed in 10 cases(53%). However 9 cases were not examined, including 6 cases with serious systemic diseases, 2 cases rejecting to be checked and 1 case with drug allergy. All the patients showed specific manifestations in both MCI and OCT examination, and the typical highly reflectivity of inner retinal layers in OCT formed tight one-to-one relationship with the green ischemic area in MCI.

CONCLUSION: RAO can be diagnosed quickly by MCI combined with OCT, and their image characteristics can accurately identify the retinal ischemic areas, which can help for disease classification and prognosis.