Retinal nerve fibre myelination

A 50-year-old man, who was newly diagnosed with diabetes, was referred for a routine eye evaluation which was unremarkable except for the observation of a flat white patch located in the inferior temporal arcade of the retina of the right eye (figure 1). A closer look at this structure revealed striation following the distribution of the nerve fibres and feathery borders, virtually diagnostic of nerve fibre myelination (figure 2). This ectopic white matter, present in less than 1% of the population,1 2 is usually found on or in the vicinity of the disc and in the arcades, and represents a failure, of unknown aetiology, of the developmental mechanisms that block the passage of the cells responsible for myelination into the eye.3 A differential diagnosis should be made with fundus lesions with similar appearance such as cotton wool spots, commonly...
Source: Postgraduate Medical Journal - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Tags: Journalology, Immunology (including allergy), Drugs: CNS (not psychiatric), Multiple sclerosis, Ophthalmology, Ethics Images in medicine Source Type: research