Chorioretinal Alterations Induced by Preeclampsia

Preeclampsia and the Retina

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

This review summarizes key findings relating to the association between preeclampsia and retinal disorders.

RECENT FINDINGS

Preeclampsia is a major cause of maternal morbidity. Pregnant women with preeclampsia frequently describe having visual disturbances. Retinal changes can be identified on fundoscopy in most patients with preeclampsia. While retinal pathology secondary to preeclampsia usually resolves postpartum, there is growing evidence that women with preeclampsia have a higher long-term risk of developing retinal disorders after pregnancy. Pregnant women often experience visual changes. While these symptoms may be benign, careful attention should be paid to exclude retinal disorders secondary to preeclampsia. Pregnant women complaining of new-onset or worsening blurry vision, scotomata, diplopia, or photopsia require rapid and thorough evaluation to rule out hypertensive disorders. Management of preeclampsia, including administration of magnesium sulfate and delivery of the fetus, can reverse retinal pathologies in most cases.

Exudative Retinal Detachment and Ciliochoroidal Effusion in Preeclampsia

Purpose: To describe a novel case of focal exudative retinal detachment, choroidal effusion, and acute angle closure in preeclampsia. Methods: A case report is presented. Results: A 37-year-old woman at 38 weeks gestation presented with 2 weeks of progressive blurred vision in the left eye. She had a visual acuity (VA) of 20/800 and an intraocular pressure (IOP) of 26 mm Hg in the left eye (compared with 17 mm Hg in the right eye). Examination showed subretinal fluid in the posterior pole, ciliochoroidal effusion, and angle closure in the left eye without pathology in the right eye. She was found to have hypertension and proteinuria consistent with preeclampsia. The visual symptoms resolved after delivery. At the 1-month follow-up, she had a VA of 20/60 OS, symmetric IOPs, and resolved subretinal and choroidal effusions. Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of ciliochoroidal effusion in the setting of preeclampsia. It may aid in the diagnosis of preeclampsia's ocular manifestations and broaden pathophysiological understanding.

Hellp syndrome-related hypertensive chorioretinopathy: A multimodal imaging and optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) study

INTRODUCTION

Pregnancy may be associated to unique retinal disorders and is associated to worsening of retinal disease that also occurs in non-pregnant females. We report a case of chorioretinopathy caused by pre-eclampsia associated to HELLP (Hemolysis-Elevated-Liver enzymes and Low Platelet count) syndrome.

METHODS

Multimodal Imaging features of HELLP syndrome-related hypertensive chorioretinopathy including retinography, Spectral Domain-Optical Coherence Tomography (SD-OCT), Fluorescein angiography (FA), Indocyanine-green angiography (ICG) along with OCT-angiography (OCTA) are presented and discussed.

RESULTS

Multimodal imaging and OCTA show both retinal and choroidal involvement by HELLP syndrome, resolved after hypertension treatment.

CONCLUSIONS

Multimodal imaging is useful to study HELLP syndrome-related hypertensive chorioretinopathy. Moreover, OCTA is a new technology able to study and follow the circulatory status of the choriocapillaris during the disease.

Idiopathic combined retinal vessels occlusion in a pregnant woman: a case report

Background

Ocular vascular occlusion is an extremely rare event, especially in the young population. This diagnosis is always associated with active systemic diseases in young adults and needs thrombophilia workup. Nevertheless, we present the case of a pregnant woman suffering from idiopathic combined central retinal vein and cilioretinal artery occlusion.

Case presentation

A 36-year-old pregnant Iranian woman at the 36th week of her second pregnancy complained of subacute unilateral painless decreased vision of her left eye. She had experienced a transient vision loss that lasted several minutes, but attacks gradually became more frequent and finally persistent over a several-day period. Finally combined central retinal vein and cilioretinal artery occlusion was established. Her visual acuity improved to 4/10 in a month without any ocular intervention except for a short duration of prophylactic dose enoxaparin, and the acuity reached 8/10 without any complications in the third month follow-up visit. At 1 year follow-up, the visual acuity had not changed and no macular edema was seen.

Conclusions

Ocular vascular occlusion is extremely rare among young adults, and even rarer among pregnant women. According to this, any suspected retinal vascular event in this population should raise suspicion for underlying diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, migraine, preeclampsia syndrome, and thrombophilia. However, as seen in this presented case, idiopathic ocular vascular occlusion events can occur also.