Retina Rocks, the official image bank of the Retina World Congress, is a free, open-source online image library whose mission is to help educate the world’s eye care providers about why the retina rocks!
The collection, culled from our fellowships and from patients we’ve personally seen in our practice, was created over a 30-year period as an internal teaching collection at Bennett & Bloom Eye Centers in Louisville, KY. In 2019 the collection was donated to seed Retina Rocks with its initial files, which currently contains over 31,000 multimodal images covering the spectrum of vitreoretinal disorders. We publish cool cases every Monday through Friday on our Instagram feed, @retina.rocks. These cases can also be directly viewed here from within this site. Retina Rocks also includes bite-sized annotated bibliographies for most disorders covering over 5,800 major publications and studies. Here’s a sampling of what these look like.
We love gorgeous pictures so virtually all images are of publication quality. More important than a pretty picture, however, is what that picture teaches us about a disease. Many of the Retina Rocks images are therefore meant to tell a story or convey a “teaching moment,” exploring the multiple ways a disease changes over time, responds to treatment or presents with a cool or unique finding.
This 51YO female presented with two years of decreasing night vision. There was a history of a prior traumatic brain injury, along with a renal transplant in 2011. VA was 20/60 OD and 20/50 OS. Optos color (left) and fundus autofluorescence (FAF, right) imaging show extremely symmetrical findings (image 1). A gutter of pigment loss extends along the inferotemporal arcades and inferior to the optic nerve into the inferior peripheries where there is more extensive chorioretinal scarring with intraretinal pigment migration. The gutters are classic for subretinal exudation, most commonly central serous chorioretinopathy (Yannuzzi et al, Ophthalmology 1984;91:1554-1572). The intraretinal pigment migration can also be seen following blunt trauma (pseudo-RP). VF testing shows marked diffuse depression (image 2, top). Triton swept-source OCT shows marked retinal thinning (image 2). OCT B-scanning shows outer retinal thinning and a probable thickened choroid bilaterally, possibly supporting the central serous diagnosis. However, the marked symmetry of all these findings made us feel that trauma or central serous were unlikely. Subsequent workup included full field electrophysiology and genetic testing. Dark adapted ERG showed normal amplitudes, but the light adapted and cone flicker were severely reduced. Her genetic testing revealed pathologic mutations in the NPHP1, ABHD12, LRP5 and PDE6A genes. The NPHP1 mutation, coupled with her retinal findings and kidney history confirmed a rare genetic autosomal recessive renal-retinal syndrome known as Senior-Løken Syndrome. This was first described independently in 1961 by Senior et al as juvenile familial nephropathy and tapetoretinal degeneration (AJO 1961;52:625-633) and Løken et al as hereditary renal dysplasia and blindness (Acta Paediatrica 1961;50:177-184). Cystic kidney disorders known as nephronophthisis accompany the retinal findings which are part of the broader category of retinal ciliopathies (Adams et al, Ophth Genetics 2007;28:113-125) including leber congenital amaurosis and some variants of retinitis pigmentosa. Less than 200 cases of Senior-Løken have been reported.
Here are this month's articles (prior months' articles in Retina Rocks are located in the _Key retina journal articles folder at the top of the collection). Every month we pull key clinical references from the major ophthalmic and retinal journals. Although we can't provide the actual journal article PDF for obvious copyright issues, we provide a single line citation including a brief summary of the article's main points. Our goal is not to be inclusive, but to capture all major clinically relevant references.
Click here for all archived cases
