Purtscher's Retinopathy Following Long Bone Fracture: A Case Report

Purtscher's retinopathy represents an occlusive retinal microvasculopathy that poses a potential threat to vision and is linked to traumatic events. This condition typically manifests in individuals following trauma, commonly associated with long bone fractures, head injuries, or thoracic compression. We report a rare case of unilateral Purtscher's retinopathy after sustaining a long bone fracture. A 27-year-old healthy man sustained an open, comminuted midshaft fracture of the right femur after an alleged motor vehicle accident. On day 3 post trauma, he developed sudden right eye painless reduced vision. Visual acuity in the right eye was 6/12 pinhole 6/12 and the left eye was 6/9 pinhole 6/6. The pupillary reflex was normal in both eyes. Both anterior segments were unremarkable. Fundoscopy showed the presence of multiple cotton wool spots and fleckens in the right eye. Macula optical coherence tomography of the right eye confirmed hyperreflective lesions within the retinal nerve fiber layer. He was diagnosed with Purtscher's retinopathy. The patient was treated conservatively given the fairly good visual acuity. There was complete resolution of fundus lesions with good visual acuity of 6/6 after one month. Ophthalmologic evaluation is crucial in cases of post-traumatic visual impairment, particularly in scenarios involving long bone fractures, to effectively exclude the possibility of Purtscher's retinopathy.

Purtscher Retinopathy Following Compressive Chest Trauma: A Case Report

Purtscher retinopathy (PR) is an occlusive vasculopathy of the retinal microvasculature that classically presents 24-48 hours after compressive chest trauma. Symptoms vary from mild to severe acute visual loss. Characteristic findings on fundus examination such as Purtscher flecken, cotton wool spots, and retinal hemorrhages may also be found. Here, we discuss a case of Purtscher retinopathy due to compressive chest trauma.

Giant Cell Arteritis Presenting as Bilateral Cotton Wool Spots

An 81-year-old Afro-Caribbean woman presented with a two-week history of a dull headache in her temples, jaw claudication especially when chewing food, and reduced vision in her eyes, more pronounced in the right eye. There was no past medical or family history of hypothyroidism or autoimmunity. On examination, the vision was counting fingers in the right eye and 6/36 in the left eye, best corrected. Dilated fundus examination revealed multiple peripapillary cotton wool spots in both eyes though more pronounced in the right. Her erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) was 120 mm/h, and her C-reactive protein (CRP) level was 79 mg/L. A temporal artery ultrasound scan was undertaken immediately which demonstrated a halo sign around both temporal arteries and so a giant cell arteritis (GCA) diagnosis was made. The patient was commenced on daily high-dose IV methylprednisolone 1 g for three days and referred to the rheumatology team. Her vision improved to 1/60 right and 6/9 left eye best corrected at three days post-treatment. At 12 months after the initial presentation, her vision stabilized at 6/60 in the right and 6/6 with complete visual fields in the left eye. Cotton wool spots can be a sign of GCA. Their appearance with or without characteristic systemic symptoms should prompt urgent evaluation.

COVID-19-Related Retinal Micro-vasculopathy - A Review of Current Evidence

PURPOSE

To evaluate the occurrence of retinal microvasculopathy in patients infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and who developed coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

DESIGN

Systematic review and meta-analysis.

METHODS

The Pubmed and Embase databases were comprehensively searched to identify studies that reported retina vascular changes in eyes with COVID-19. Two independent reviewers selected papers and extracted data for analysis. Data of interest were extracted and analyzed in RevMan Web versions 3.3. Quality of evidence was assessed using the National Institute of Health quality assessment tool for a case-control study.

RESULTS

Thirty-one studies reporting on 1373 subjects (972 COVID-19 and 401 controls) were included. Only case-control studies were included in the pooled analysis. There was a significantly higher likelihood of retinal microvasculopathy in subjects with COVID-19 compared to controls (odds ratio [95% confidence interval], 8.86 [2.54-27.53], P < .01). Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) revealed reduced vessel density and enlarged foveal avascular zone in subjects with COVID-19 compared to controls.

CONCLUSIONS

The results suggested that COVID-19-related retinal microvasculopathy is a significant ocular manifestation of COVID-19 and may herald future retinal complications. These microvascular impairments might have occurred antecedent to clinically visible changes and could be detected earlier by OCTA. These findings are significant, due to the large numbers with COVID-19, and need to be recognized by ophthalmologists as a potential long-term sequalae of the disease.

Retinal Involvement in COVID-19: Results From a Prospective Retina Screening Program in the Acute and Convalescent Phase

Objective: To detect retinal involvement in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients in acute and convalescent phase by their fundus screening.

Methods: In a prospective, cross-sectional, observational study (July–November 2020), 235 patients (142 acute and 93 convalescent phase) underwent fundus screening in a tertiary care center in North India. For convalescent phase, “hospitalized” patients (73) were screened at least 2 weeks after hospital discharge, and “home-isolated” patients (20) were screened 17 days after symptom onset/COVID-19 testing.

Results: None in acute phase showed any retinal lesion that could be attributed exclusively to COVID-19. Five patients (5.38%) in convalescent phase had cotton wool spots (CWSs) with/without retinal hemorrhage, with no other retinal finding, and no visual symptoms, seen at a median of 30 days from COVID-19 diagnosis.

Conclusions: CWSs (and retinal hemorrhages) were an incidental finding in COVID-19, detected only in the convalescent phase. These patients were much older (median age = 69 years) than the average age of our sample and had systemic comorbidities (diabetes mellitus, hypertension, etc.). We propose the term “COVID-19 retinopathy” to denote the presence of CWSs at the posterior pole, occasionally associated with intraretinal hemorrhages, in the absence of ocular inflammation in patients with a history of COVID-19 disease.

Persistent Retinal Microvascular Impairment in COVID-19 Bilateral Pneumonia at 6-Months Follow-Up Assessed by Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the long-term evolution of retinal changes in COVID-19 patients with bilateral pneumonia. A total of 17 COVID-19 patients underwent retinal imaging 6 months after hospital discharge with structural optical coherence tomography (OCT) and optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA). The parafoveal retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) and ganglion cell layer (GCL) were significantly thinner in COVID-19 patients at 6 months compared to 0 months (p = <0.001 in both cases). In the optic nerve analysis, a significantly thinner RNFL was observed (p = 0.006) but persisted significantly thickened, compared to controls (p = 0.02). The vascular density (VD) at 6 months persisted significantly decreased when compared to the control group, and no significant differences were found with the 0 months evaluation; in addition, when analyzed separately, women showed a worsening in the VD. Moreover, a significantly greater foveal area zone (FAZ) (p = 0.003) was observed in COVID-19 patients at 6 months, compared to 0 months. The cotton wool spots (CWSs) observed at baseline were no longer present at 6 months, except for one patient that developed new ones. This study demonstrates that some of the previously known microvascular alterations resulting from COVID-19, persist over time and are still evident 6 months after hospital discharge in patients who have suffered from bilateral pneumonia.

Bilateral Central Retinal Vein Occlusion, multiple dental implants and severe glomerulonephtitis - Any connection?

We present a case of Bilateral Central Retinal Vein Occlusion in a patient who received 11 dental implants and later developed idiopathic glomerulonephritis with renal failure.

Chikungunya Virus Infection Associated with Encephalitis and Anterior Uveitis

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is an RNA virus transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes. The clinical manifestations include fever, arthralgia, rash, and other atypical clinical findings including ocular lesions. We report the case of a 57-year-old man with meningoencephalitis and anterior uveitis due to CHIKV. The patient had developed bilateral anterior uveitis with iris atrophy and a cotton wool spot on the left eye, and his serum, urine, saliva, and cerebrospinal fluid were positive for CHIKV by RT-PCR. The spectrum of the ophthalmologic manifestations and its pathophysiology in cases of CHIKV infections needs to be better understood. Additional studies examining the ocular lesions caused by CHIKV could improve the therapeutic goals of reducing the morbidity and sequels.

Why cotton wool spots should not be regarded as retinal nerve fibre layer infarcts

Cotton wool spots (CWSs) comprise localised accumulations of axoplasmic debris within adjacent bundles of unmyelinated ganglion cell axons. Their formation is widely held to reflect focal ischaemia from terminal arteriolar occlusion, but credible evidence supporting this view is lacking. CWSs are here purported to be nothing more than sentinels of retinal nerve fibre layer pathology, hence their recommended redesignation "cotton wool sentinels." After branch arteriolar occlusion, CWSs evolve as boundary sentinels of infarction, their uniform width suggesting a glial constraint to axonal expansion. In pre-proliferative diabetic retinopathy, CWSs form a C-shaped chain nasal to the disc and around the macula where they constitute sentinels of ischaemia affecting the entire retinal mid-periphery. The polymorphous CWSs evolving during acute panretinal hypoperfusion represent sentinels of an ischaemic penumbra. Those surrounding the disc in Purtscher's traumatic angiopathy are sentinels of neuronal damage from transient venous hyperdistension that overwhelms the protection afforded by peripapillary axonal decompartmentalisation.

The relationship between AIDS retinal cotton wool spots and neuropsychological impairment in HIV-positive individuals in the pre-highly active antiretroviral therapy era

PURPOSE

To determine the relationship between AIDS retinal cotton wool spots (CWS) and neuropsychological impairment in HIV-positive individuals in the pre-HAART (highly active anti-retroviral therapy) era and the association between AIDS-related retinal CWS and neuropsychological impairment in HIV-positive patients not treated with HAART.

METHODS

A case-control analysis of prospectively acquired data in HIV-infected individuals who underwent prospective and longitudinal evaluations of retinal findings as well as neuropsychological testing was performed. Individuals underwent prospective retinal ophthalmic examinations with fundus photography of any retinal lesions. They also underwent periodic neuropsychological testing. The occurrence of retinal CWS was analyzed in relationship to neuropsychological impairment.

RESULTS

Thirty individuals with CWS were compared to 6o matched control AIDS patients. There was no association between either global clinical neuropsychological impairment or impairment in any of the five major domains tested and retinal CWS. There was an association between beta-2 microglobulin and CWS as well as an association between low CD4 T-cell count and the presence of retinal CWS.

CONCLUSIONS

We found no association between retinovascular disease and neurocognitive impairment in this case-control study. Retinal CWS in HIV disease are related to higher serum beta-2 microglobulin levels and lower CD4 T-cell counts, suggesting that these lesions are related to HIV disease progression but may be caused by a pathological process independent of CNS disease.