Retinal vasculitis miasms

Clinic

Retinal vasculitis presents with characteristic features on clinical examination. The area of vascular involvement can be focal, diffuse or segmental. Often, retinal vasculitis may involve the veins alone.

Retinal arteritis is more common with disease such as acute retinal necrosis and systemic vasculitidis.

Various manifestations:

• Perivascular sheathing

• Intraretinal infiltrates Patches of retinitis may accompany retinal vasculitis. These are seen in individuals with Adamantiades-Behçet’s disease (ABD) and infectious uveitis. These patches of retinitis may be transient, as in ABD, or may be accompanied by retinal necrosis. Intraretinal infiltrates can be sight-threatening and can lead to retinal atrophy, breaks and detachment. CMV retinitis associated with retinal vasculitis.

• Cotton-wool spots : Retinal vasculitis may result in micro-infarcts of the retinal nerve fiber layer that manifests as diffuse, fluffy, cotton-wool like spots in the superficial retinal surface. Systemic vasculitidis such as SLE, polyarteritis nodosa, Churg-Strauss syndrome can be associated with retinal precapillary arteriolar occlusion resulting in cotton-wool spots.

• Retinal Necrosis: Infectious forms of uveitis associated with retinal vasculitis can be associated with necrosis of retinal layers. This is commonly seen in TPG, VZV, HSV1, HSV-2, CMV and HTLV-1.

• Frosted Branch Angiitis Frosted branch angiitis is a descriptive term for retinal vasculitis characterized by severe infiltration of perivascular space with lymphoplasmacytic infiltrates.It has also been reported in SLE, Crohn’s disease, TPG and AIDS.

• Retinal Ischemia: It is commonly seen following MTB or SLE.

Sign / Symptoms

• Painless blurry vision
• Visual floaters
• Scotomas (dark spot in vision)
• ecreased Color-vision, and
• Metamorphopsia (distortion of images such as linear images)

Related Diseases

• Behçet's disease
• Common Variable Immune Deficiency
• Eales disease
• Granulomatosis with polyangiitis
• Idiopathic Retinal Vasculitis Aneurysms and Neuroretinitis
• Lupus erythematosus
• MS
• Polyarteritis nodosa
• Q fever
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Sarcoidosis
• Temporal arteritis