Abstract
Abstract: :
Purpose: Retinal dialysis is a well-recognized cause of retinal detachment, with the vast majority of cases attributed to traumatic mechanisms. In an attempt to elucidate non-traumatic etiologies of retinal dialysis, we characterize the clinical features and patient characteristics of spontaneous retinal dialyses leading to non-traumatic retinal detachments. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 48 cases of retinal detachment caused by retinal dialysis that presented at the University of California, San Francisco from 1974 through 2000. After excluding all patients with a recent or remote history of head trauma as well as any patient with clinical evidence of prior blunt or penetrating ocular injuries, we categorized 16 of the 48 cases as spontaneous retinal dialyses. Results: Five of the 16 patients with non-traumatic detachments had bilateral dialyses, while 11 of the 16 cases were unilateral. Of the 16 patients and 22 eyes with a non-traumatic retinal dialysis, 22 out of 22 (100%) dialyses involved the inferotemporal quadrant. Only 12/32 (37.5 %) of the traumatic cases of retinal dialyses affected the inferotemporal quadrant, while 20/32 (62.5%) involved the superior nasal or superior temporal quadrant. The mean age of the patients with a non-traumatic retinal dialysis was 28 years (range 11 to 41 years), and 11 out of these 16 (69%) patients were male. Eight of the 16 patients (50%) were of Hispanic origin, including 4 out of the 5 (80%) bilateral cases. Of the 15 out of 16 patients with records of initial baseline refractive errors, 11 (73.3%) patients were emmetropic, 3 (20.0%) were myopic, and one (6.7%) was hyperopic. Conclusions: Non-traumatic retinal dialyses typically are found in emmetropic young males with the dialysis affecting the inferotemporal quadrant. This clinical entity is often bilateral, and the preponderance of cases involving patients of Hispanic ethnicity suggests a genetic factor in its etiology.
Keywords: 563 retinal detachment • 554 retina