Congenital optic pits and central serous chorioretinopathy.

PURPOSE: The reporting of the occurrence of central serous chorioretinopathy in a patient with congenital optic pits. METHODS: A 31-year-old man complained of blurred vision in the right eye for 1 week. He had a visual acuity of 20/25 in the right eye. He underwent ophthalmoscopy and fluorescein angiography. RESULTS: Ophthalmoscopy revealed serous detachment of macula with its margin not adjacent to the margin of optic disc. Fluorescein angiography showed a typical ink blot appearance of dye leakage. CONCLUSIONS: Central serous chorioretinopathy can occur in the patient with congenital optic pits. Detailed ophthalmoscopic and fluorescein angiographic studies are necessary to establish the diagnosis of optic pits associated with macular detachment. Various mechanisms have been reported to explain the serous macular detachment in patients with optic pits including vitreous and cerebrospinal fluid leakage through the optic pit and from there into the subretinal space. The present case further denotes that central serous chorioretinopathy in the presence of optic pits can be due to leakage from the retinal pigment epithelium.

Treatment of vitreous floaters with neodymium YAG laser.

Fifteen cases of vitreous floaters with serious psychological reactions have been collected. By using a direct ophthalmoscope, causal vitreous opacities were detected. The opacities were photodisrupted with neodymium YAG laser, using energy levels of 5 to 7.1 mJ and total energy 71 to 742.0 mJ. Symptoms completely disappeared immediately after treatment in all 15 cases. There were no intraoperative or postoperative complications noted during a follow up period of at least 1 year. To our knowledge, the use of neodymium YAG laser to treat vitreous floaters has not been previously described. Our initial experience indicates that the treatment is simple, safe, and effective.

Potential acuity meter for predicting visual acuity after Nd:YAG posterior capsulotomy.

The potential acuity meter (PAM) was designed to evaluate visual acuity in 22 eyes that required secondary capsulotomies. The PAM prediction was within one line in 13 eyes (59%) and within two lines in 17 eyes (77%) and had an 18% rate of falsely bad prediction (more than two lines) and 5% rate of falsely good prediction for YAG capsulotomy. In aphakic patients, however, further study is necessary.

Bacteriological study in chronic maxillary sinusitis.

The bacterial findings of 73 maxillary sinuses in 48 patients with chronic maxillary sinusitis, together with 7 non-inflamed sinuses, are reported. Employing an intraoperative technique and simultaneous collection of 3 different types of specimens in the present investigation made possible comparison of their bacterial characteristics. The results indicated that intraoperative culture of antral mucosa seems to provide the most reliable finding of bacterial flora in chronic maxillary sinusitis. The anaerobic bacteria were never found in the mucosal culture of non-inflamed sinus. The anaerobes appeared to invade the sinus cavity following the sealing of the ostium through the lymphatic or venous system and maintain the inflammatory process. Microbiological analysis of the results between the infected and non-inflamed sinuses established anaerobic bacteria as the most important pathogen in chronic maxillary sinusitis. The predominant anaerobes recovered in descending order of frequency were Veillonella sp., Peptococcus sp., Propionibacterium acne and anaerobic nonspore-forming GPB. Statistical analysis of the results of mucosal culture of inflamed and control materials demonstrated that those aerobic and faculatative bacteria recovered in the inflamed sinus appeared to be the normal inhabitants of non-inflamed sinus mucosa. The presence of normal flora in the normal healthy sinus mucosa may explain the chain of events that follows the occlusion of the ostium. These aerobic bacteria may become pathogenic and play a role in the pathogenesis of sinusitis.