The authors report follow-up observations for a case of isolated leukemic uveopathy that was first diagnosed in an 11-year-old girl shortly after cessation of treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Prior therapy for the complication included systemic antiblastic chemotherapy and low doses of radiation (3.9 Gy) to the affected eye. In July 1979, 2 months after chemotherapy was stopped for the second time, she presented with recurrent leukemic hypopyon in the left eye and was treated again with antiblastic chemotherapy followed in 1 year by high-dose (20 Gy) local irradiation. After a third recurrence, which was diagnosed as pre-B/B-cell ALL with a variable position of maturation arrest, enucleation was performed. The patient remains in complete remission for 26+ months after an additional course of systemic chemotherapy. This case illustrates the difficulty of eradicating leukemic cells from the eye with conventional treatment but suggests that a relapse in this site is not necessarily an ominous prognostic sign.
In order to test whether the mean age at cataract surgery has changed over the course of the last 30 years, a hospital series of 5443 patients undergoing cataract extraction between 1956 and 1987 is reviewed. All cases attended the same University Eye Clinic of Milan and most were resident in the same geographical area. Cases with macular or optic nerve diseases were excluded. Results show that mean age at cataract surgery progressively increased from 67.5 to 71.5 years (slope = +0.096 years of age per year, p = 0.0001) as did visual acuity at surgery (patients with visual acuity levels greater than or equal to 1/10 at time of cataract surgery rose from 3.2% to 47.9%). These results can be interpreted in terms of a change in age composition of the Italian population, improved access to health services for the elderly, and an improvement in surgical and rehabilitation techniques.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.