Made by DATEXIS (Data Science and Text-based Information Systems) at Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin
Deep Learning Technology: Sebastian Arnold, Betty van Aken, Paul Grundmann, Felix A. Gers and Alexander Löser. Learning Contextualized Document Representations for Healthcare Answer Retrieval. The Web Conference 2020 (WWW'20)
Funded by The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy; Grant: 01MD19013D, Smart-MD Project, Digital Technologies
Pterygium (conjunctiva) can be diagnosed without need for a specific exam, however corneal topography is a practical test (technique) as the condition worsens.
As it is associated with excessive sun or wind exposure, wearing protective sunglasses with side shields and/or wide brimmed hats and using artificial tears throughout the day may help prevent their formation or stop further growth. Surfers and other water-sport athletes should wear eye protection that blocks 100% of the UV rays from the water, as is often used by snow-sport athletes. Many of those who are at greatest risk of pterygium from work or play sun exposure do not understand the importance of protection.
A pinguecula is one of the differential diagnoses for a limbal nodule. It may have an increased prevalence in Gaucher's disease.
Pingueculae may enlarge slowly over time, but are a benign condition, usually requiring no treatment. Artificial tears may help to relieve discomfort, if it occurs. If cosmesis is a concern, surgical excision is sometimes done. Occasionally, a pinguecula may become inflamed, a condition called pingueculitis. The cause of pingueculitis is unknown and there are no known infectious agents associated with it. If an inflamed pinguecula is causing discomfort or cosmetic concerns, it may be treated with an anti-inflammatory agent, such as prednisolone drops.
Genetic counseling for VWS involves discussion of disease transmission in the autosomal dominant manner and possibilities for penetrance and expression in offspring. Autosomal dominance means affected parents have a 50% chance of passing on their mutated "IRF6" allele to a their child. Furthermore, if a cleft patient has lip pits, he or she has a ten times greater risk of having a child with cleft lip with or without cleft palate than a cleft patient who does not have lip pits. Types of clefting between parents and affected children are significantly associated; however, different types of clefts may occur horizontally and vertically within the same pedigree. In cases where clefting is the only symptom, a complete family history must be taken to ensure the patient does not have non-syndromic clefting.
Intraocular pressure should be measured as part of the routine eye examination.
It is usually only elevated by iridocyclitis or acute-closure glaucoma, but not by relatively benign conditions.
In iritis and traumatic perforating ocular injuries, the intraocular pressure is usually low.
Cyclotropia can be detected using subjective tests such as the Maddox rod test, the Bagolini striated lens test, the phase difference haploscope of Aulhorn, or the Lancaster red-green test (LRGT). Among these, the LRGT is the most complete. Cyclotropia can also be diagnosed using a combination of subjective and objective tests. Before surgery, both subjective and objective torsion should be assessed.
Experiments have also been made on whether cyclic deviations can be assessed by purely photographic means.
Lip pits may be surgically removed either for aesthetic reasons or discomfort due to inflammation caused by bacterial infections or chronic saliva excretion, though spontaneous shrinkage of the lip pits has occurred in some rare cases. Chronic inflammation has also been reported to cause squamous-cell carcinoma. It is essential to completely remove the entire lip pit canal, as mucoid cysts can develop if mucous glands are not removed. A possible side effect of removing the lip pits is a loose lip muscle. Other conditions associated with VWS, including CL, CP, congenital heart defects, etc. are surgically corrected or otherwise treated as they would be if they were non-syndromic.
In an eye with iridocyclitis, (inflammation of both the iris and ciliary body), the involved pupil will be smaller than the uninvolved, due to reflex muscle spasm of the sphincter muscle of the iris.
Generally, conjunctivitis does not affect the pupils.
With acute angle-closure glaucoma, the pupil is generally fixed in mid-position, oval, and responds sluggishly to light, if at all.
Shallow anterior chamber depth may indicate a predisposition to one form of glaucoma (narrow angle) but requires slit-lamp examination or other special techniques to determine it.
In the presence of a "red eye", a shallow anterior chamber may indicate acute glaucoma, which requires immediate attention.
If only small amounts of torsion are present, cyclotropia may be without symptoms entirely and may not need correction, as the visual system can compensate small degrees of torsion and still achieve binocular vision ("see also:" cyclodisparity, cyclovergence). The compensation can be a motor response (visually evoked cyclovergence) or can take place during signal processing in the brain. In patients with cyclotropia of vascular origin, the condition often improves spontaneously.
Cyclotropia cannot be corrected with prism spectacles in the way other eye position disorders are corrected. (Nonetheless two Dove prisms can be employed to rotate the visual field in experimental settings.)
For cyclodeviations above 5 degrees, surgery has normally been recommended. Depending on the symptoms, the surgical correction of cyclotropia may involve a correction of an associated vertical deviation (hyper- or hypotropia), or a Harada–Ito procedure or another procedure to rotate the eye inwards, or yet another procedure to rotate it outwards. A cyclodeviation may thus be corrected at the same time with a correction of a vertical deviation (hyper- or hypotropia); cyclodeviations without any vertical deviation can be difficult to manage surgically, as the correction of the cyclodeviation may introduce a vertical deviation.
During an eye examination, the presence of suppression and the size and location of the suppression scotoma may be the Worth 4 dot test (a subjective test that is considered to be the most precise suppression test), or with other subjective tests such as the Bagolini striated lens test, or with objective tests such as the 4 prism base out test.
In general, strabismus can be approached and treated with a variety of procedures. Depending on the individual case, treatment options include:
- Correction of refractive errors by glasses
- Prism therapy (if tolerated, to manage diplopia)
- Patching (mainly to manage amblyopia in children and diplopia in adults)
- Botulinum toxin injection
- Surgical correction
Surgical correction of the hypertropia is desired to achieve binocularity, manage diplopia and/or correct the cosmetic defect. Steps to achieve the same depend on mechanism of the hypertropia and identification of the offending muscles causing the misalignment. Various surgical procedures have been described and should be offered after careful examination of eyes, including a detailed orthoptic examination focussing on the disturbances in ocular motility and visual status. Specialty fellowship trained pediatric ophthalmologists and strabismus surgeons are best equipped to deal with these complex procedures.
Diagnosis of convergence insufficiency is made by an eye care professional skilled in binocular vision dysfunctions to rule out any organic disease. Convergence insufficiency characterized by one or more of the following diagnostic findings: Patient symptoms, High exophoria at near, reduced accommodative convergence/accommodation ratio, receded near point of convergence, low fusional vergence ranges and/or facility. Some patients with convergence insufficiency have concurrent accommodative insufficiency—accommodative amplitudes should therefore also be measured in symptomatic patients.
A limbal nodule is any nodular lesion at the limbus (junction of the cornea and sclera) of the eye.
The differential diagnosis for a limbal nodule can include:
- Pinguecula
- Early Pterygium
- Foreign body / foreign body granuloma
- Phlycten, an inflamed nodule of lymphoid tissue
- Episcleritis
- Scleritis
- Granuloma
- Limbal dermoid, a kind of choristoma (NB: in other organs "dermoid" can refer to a teratoma)
- malignant melanoma
Pterygium inversum unguis (also known as "Pterygium inversus unguis," and "Ventral pterygium") is characterized by the adherence of the distal portion of the nailbed to the ventral surface of the nail plate. The condition may be present at birth or acquired, and may cause pain with manipulation of small objects, typing, and close manicuring of the nail.
The condition is often diagnosed through an MRI or ultrasound. Consulting a specialist (in this case a gynecologist) is recommended.
Unless there is actual trauma to the eye itself (see below), extensive medical attention is generally not needed.
Applying an ice pack will keep down swelling and reduce internal bleeding by constricting the capillaries. Additionally, analgesic drugs (painkillers) can be administered to relieve pain.
An anecdotal remedy for a black eye involves the administering of raw meat to treat the condition - Research on this treatment has yet to find any evidence of this treatment being effective.
During an eye examination, a test such as cover testing or the Hirschberg test is used in the diagnosis and measurement of strabismus and its impact on vision. Retinal birefringence scanning can be used for screening of young children for eye misaligments.
Several classifications are made when diagnosing strabismus.
Refractive errors such as hyperopia and Anisometropia may be associated abnormalities found in patients with vertical strabismus.
The vertical miscoordination between the two eyes may lead to
- Strabismic amblyopia, (due to deprivation / suppression of the deviating eye)
- cosmetic defect (most noticed by parents of a young child and in photographs)
- Face turn, depending on presence of binocular vision in a particular gaze
- diplopia or double vision - more seen in adults (maturity / plasticity of neural pathways) and suppression mechanisms of the brain in sorting out the images from the two eyes.
- cyclotropia, a cyclotorsional deviation of the eyes (rotation around the visual axis), particularly when the root cause is an oblique muscle paresis causing the hypertropia.
On babies, webbed neck may look like loose folds of skin on the neck. As the child grows, the skin may stretch out to look like there is little or no neck.
A comprehensive eye examination including an ocular motility (i.e., eye movement) evaluation and an evaluation of the internal ocular structures will allow an eye doctor to accurately diagnose the exotropia. Although glasses and/or patching therapy, exercises, or prisms may reduce or help control the outward-turning eye in some children, surgery is often required.
There is a common form of exotropia known as "convergence insufficiency" that responds well to orthoptic vision therapy including exercises. This disorder is characterized by an inability of the eyes to work together when used for near viewing, such as reading. Instead of the eyes focusing together on the near object, one deviates outward.
"Consecutive exotropia" is an exotropia that arises after an initial esotropia. Most often it results from surgical overcorrection of the initial esotropia. It can be addressed with further surgery or with vision therapy; vision therapy has shown promising results if the consecutive exotropia is intermittent, alternating and of small magnitude. (Consecutive exotropia may however also spontaneously develop from esotropia, without surgery or botulinum toxin treatment.)
Because of the risks of surgery, and because about 35% of people require at least one more surgery, many people try vision therapy first. This consists of visual exercises. Although vision therapy is generally not covered by American health insurance companies, many large insurers such as Aetna have recently begun offering full or partial coverage in response to recent studies.
Strabismus surgery is sometimes recommended if the exotropia is present for more than half of each day or if the frequency is increasing over time. It is also indicated if a child has significant exotropia when reading or viewing near objects or if there is evidence that the eyes are losing their ability to work as a single unit (binocular vision). If none of these criteria are met, surgery may be postponed pending simple observation with or without some form of eyeglass and/or patching therapy. In very mild cases, there is a chance that the exotropia will diminish with time. The long-term success of surgical treatment for conditions such as intermittent exotropia is not well proven, and surgery can often result in a worsening of symptoms due to overcorrection. Evidence from the available literature suggests that unilateral surgery was more effective than bilateral surgery for individuals affected with intermittent exotropia.
The surgical procedure for the correction of exotropia involves making a small incision in the tissue covering the eye in order to reach the eye muscles. The appropriate muscles are then repositioned in order to allow the eye to move properly. The procedure is usually done under general anesthesia. Recovery time is rapid, and most people are able to resume normal activities within a few days. Following surgery, corrective eyeglasses may be needed and, in many cases, further surgery is required later to keep the eyes straight.
When a child requires surgery, the procedure is usually performed before the child attains school age. This is easier for the child and gives the eyes a better chance to work together. As with all surgery, there are some risks. However, strabismus surgery is usually a safe and effective treatment.
Suppression may treated with vision therapy, though there is a wide range of opinions on long-term effectiveness between eye care professionals, with little scientific evidence of long-term improvement of suppression, if the underlying cause is not addressed (strabismus, amblyopia, etc.).
A black eye, periorbital hematoma, or shiner, is bruising around the eye commonly due to an injury to the face rather than to the eye. The name is given due to the color of bruising. The so-called black eye is caused by bleeding beneath the skin and around the eye. Sometimes a black eye could get worse if not referring to a doctor after a few months, indicating a more extensive injury, even a skull fracture, particularly if the area around both eyes is bruised (raccoon eyes), or if there has been a prior head injury.
Although most black eye injuries are not serious, bleeding within the eye, called a hyphema, is serious and can reduce vision and damage the cornea. In some cases, abnormally high pressure inside the eyeball (ocular hypertension) can also result.
Convergence insufficiency may be treated with convergence exercises prescribed by an eyecare specialist trained in orthoptics or binocular vision anomalies. Some cases of convergence insufficiency are successfully managed by prescription of eyeglasses, sometimes with therapeutic prisms.
Pencil push-ups therapy is performed at home. Patient brings a pencil slowly to within 2–3 cm of the eye just above the nose about 15 minutes per day 5 times per week. Patients should record the closest distance that they could maintain fusion (keep the pencil from going double as long as possible) after each 5 minutes of therapy. Computer software may be used at home or in an orthoptists/vision therapists office to treat convergence insufficiency. A weekly 60-minute in-office therapy visit may be prescribed. This is generally accompanied with additional in home therapy.
In 2005, the Convergence Insufficiency Treatment Trial (CITT) published two randomized clinical studies. The first, published in Archives of Ophthalmology demonstrated that computer exercises when combined with office based vision therapy/orthoptics were more effective than "pencil pushups" or computer exercises alone for convergency insufficiency in 9- to 18-year-old children. The second found similar results for adults 19 to 30 years of age. In a bibliographic review of 2010, the CITT confirmed their view that office-based accommodative/vergence therapy is the most effective treatment of convergence insufficiency, and that substituting it in entirety or in part with other eye training approaches such as home-based therapy may offer advantages in cost but not in outcome. A later study of 2012 confirmed that orthoptic exercises led to longstanding improvements of the asthenopic symptoms of convergence sufficiency both in adults and in children. A 2011 Cochrane Review reaffirmed that office-based therapy is more effective than home-based therapy, though the evidence of effectiveness is a lot stronger for children than for the adult population.
Both positive fusional vergence (PFV) and negative fusional vergence (NFV) can be trained, and vergence training should normally include both.
Surgical correction options are also available, but the decision to proceed with surgery should be made with caution as convergence insufficiency generally does not improve with surgery. Bilateral medial rectus resection is the preferred type of surgery. However, the patient should be warned about the possibility of uncrossed diplopia at distance fixation after surgery. This typically resolves within 1–3 months postoperatively. The exophoria at near often recurs after several years, although most patients remain asymptomatic.
It is a feature of Turner syndrome (only found in girls) and Noonan syndrome, as well as the rarer Klippel-Feil syndrome, or Diamond-Blackfan Anemia