Issue: Vojnosanit Pregl 2016; Vol. 73 (No. 12)

Severe vaso-occlusive retinopathy associated with systemic lupus erythematosus

Authors:
Aleksandra Radosavljević, Jelena Karadžić, Igor Kovačević, Jelena Ljikar, Gordana Devečerski

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Introduction. Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a systemic idiopathic autoimmune inflammatory disease, with multiple or-gan involvement. Severe vaso-occlusive retinopathy is a rare, sight threatening lupus-related manifestation of the disease, which is more common in patients with coexisting antiphosphol-ipid syndrome. Case report. We reported a 36-year-old female with severe vaso-occlusive retinopathy that manifested in the ab-sence of antiphospholipid syndrome. In a 4-year follow-up, de-spite aggressive systemic corticosteroid and immunosuppressive therapy and panretinal laserphotocoagulation treatment, the dis-ease progressed to retinal neovascularisation, neovascular vitreo-retinopathy, neovascular glaucoma and, consecutively, severe visual loss. As the final option for preservation of visual func-tion, pars plana vitrectomy with laserphotocoagulation was per-formed and had good results. Progression of ophthalmological findings indicated the progression of the systemic disease, as well as neurolupus. Conclusion. Severe vaso-occlusive retinopathy occurred as the ophthalmological manifestation of SLE in the absence of antiphospholipid syndrome, but correlated with neu-rolupus and led to visual deterioration despite the treatment.