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Retinal dystrophy
What is retinal dystrophy?
Retinal dystrophy is a hereditary disease of the retina that affects its outermost layers, primarily damaging the photoreceptor cells (a type of light-sensitive neurones) and the pigment epithelium (responsible for feeding the photoreceptors). In some dystrophies, there might also be alterations in the vitreous gel that fills eyeball and is in contact with the retina.
There are round twenty different retinal dystrophies that might appear only in the eye or be associated to syndromes affecting several organs. Some of the main ones are:
- Achromatopsia
- Leber congenital amaurosis
- Choroideremia
- Cone dystrophy
- Cone-rod dystrophy
- Best disease
- Stargardt disease
- Retinitis pigmentosa
- Retinoschisis
- Stickler Syndrome
- Usher Syndrome
- Familial exudative vitreoretinopathy
Retinal dystrophies might often have overlapping symptoms and very subtle differences between them, so it can be difficult to tell them apart precisely. The Miranza clinics (link) employs specialists in these “rare” or minority diseases (present in around 1 in every 3,000 people) and we offer a genetic diagnosis service at the IMO Grupo Miranza lab to supplement the clinical diagnosis and put a name to each disease.
Symptoms
The symptoms you might experience vary depending on each retinal dystrophy and its degree of evolution. Whether it affects your central and/or peripheral vision will depend on the type of photoreceptor cell damaged by the disease: in the first case, the cones (concentrated in the centre of the retina and needed to make out details and colours) or, in the second, the rods (distributed around the retina and responsible for night vision). Therefore, chromatic alterations or poor night vision are also common in some dystrophies, as well as other symptoms such as dazzle and extreme sensitivity to light, or flashes.
