Retinal energy metabolism
Clinical background ( Box 73.1 ) Altered retinal oxygenation plays a central role in the pathogenesis of many retinal diseases and a hypothesized role in others. Unfortunately, despite decades of…
OPHTHALMOLOGY
Acute retinal vascular occlusive disorders
Overview Acute retinal vascular occlusive disorders collectively constitute a major cause of serious visual impairment. Despite the fact that retinal artery occlusion (RAO) and retinal vein occlusion (RVO) have been…
Retinal photic injury: Laboratory and clinical findings
Overview Retinal photoreceptors are paradoxically efficient in their ability to capture photons for visual transduction while being vulnerable to cellular damage from excess light. Although the molecular mechanism of visual…
Retinal detachment
Clinical background Retinal detachment (RD) is a physical separation of the neural retina from the retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE). An important physiological ramification of the creation of a detachment is…
Inhibition of angiogenesis
Clinical background Ocular angiogenesis can be physiological or pathological, with physiological ocular angiogenesis occurring primarily during embryonic development (reviewed by Gariano ). Ocular angiogenesis in adults is usually pathological and…
Color vision defects
Clinical background Key symptoms and signs “Normal” color vision refers to the form of trichromatic color vision shared by most humans. It is mediated by three types of retinal cone…
Diabetic macular edema
Overview Diabetic macular edema (DME) can cause structural retinal changes severe enough to make it the most common cause of visual loss in patients with diabetes. DME is defined by…
Dry age-related macular degeneration and age-related macular degeneration pathogenesis
Clinical background Clinical manifestations of dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD) include drusen, retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) hyperplasia, RPE depigmentation, and geographic atrophy (GA) ( Box 68.1 ). The prevalence of…
Neovascularization in diabetic retinopathy
Clinical background Introduction Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder caused by defects in insulin secretion (type 1), insulin action (type 2), or both. It is characterized by chronic hyperglycemia which…
Vascular damage in diabetic retinopathy
Overview Diabetic retinopathy remains a major cause of morbidity in diabetic patients. To date, the retinopathy has been defined based on lesions that are clinically demonstrable, and all of those…
