Retinal Findings on OCT in Systemic Conditions

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Imaging technology has advanced by leaps and bounds in the recent past and has resulted in a much greater understanding of ocular diseases. The aim of this review article is to summarize optical coherence tomography (OCT) findings of various systemic conditions. Method: A systematic literature search of the Medline/PubMed database was performed. English articles up to April 2015 were included. Terms used for search included: Alzheimer’s Disease; Multiple Sclerosis; Parkinson’s Disease; Behçet’s Disease; Schizophrenia; Migraine; Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome; Neurofibromatosis; Sickle Cell Disease; Renal diseases; Lupus Retinopathy; Valsalva Retinopathy; Whiplash Retinopathy; Shaken-Baby Syndrome; Choroidal metastases; Intracranial Hypertension; Drug toxicity; Deferoxamine; Sildenafil; Tamoxifen; Hydroxychloroquine; Chloroquine; Ethambutol; Lead; Sickle Cell Disease; and Thalassemia along with OCT. Results: Studies have shown that inner retinal thinning could be the earliest sign of neurological diseases and may help to differentiate individuals with abnormalities. Outer retinal damage was noted in cancer-related retinopathy and secondary to drug toxicity as a diagnostic sign. This review article summarizes the OCT findings and their importance in early diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up in a varying spectrum of systemic diseases including neurological diseases, hematological diseases, cancer-related retinopathies, and systemic drug toxicity. Conclusion: OCT findings are useful to predict the probability of a disease, to diagnose it early, to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy tissue, and to assess the effect of therapeutic interventions in many systemic diseases.

Keywords:

• Alzheimer’s disease
• leukemia
• lupus retinopathy
• migraine
• multiple sclerosis
• obstructive sleep apnea syndrome
• Parkinson’s disease
• schizophrenia
• shaken-baby syndrome
• Sickle Cell disease

DECLARATION OF INTEREST

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.