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US: Doctors warn laser eye injuries may be misdiagnosed as genetic disorders

A paper to be published online in the fall 2015 issue of Ophthalmic Genetics says that laser-caused eye injuries may be misdiagnosed as genetic eye disorders, if doctors are not familiar with laser injury patterns or if the patients are not asked about possible laser usage.

Such misdiagnosis has medical and financial consequences from the additional diagnostic workups and DNA sequencing used to detect hereditary genetic disorders such as rod monochromatism, Stargardt disease and occult macular dystrophy.

In addition, the paper describes five cases of where children using laser pointers experienced blurry vision and had eye injuries. “In some cases, the vision was as poor as 20/80, which is bad enough to fail a driving test,” said researcher Dr. Stephen Tsang, who is affiliated with Columbia University and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

Dr. Tsang and his colleagues noted damage patterns similar to tree branches on the children’s retinas:

Laser-induced eye damage


They suggest that eye-care professionals should ask patients with such patterns if they have been using lasers. Because children may be hesitant to talk in front of their parents, the researchers also suggest talking to a child alone.

A Columbia University press release noted “Since the publication about the five patients, the researchers have seen several more children with laser-induced eye injuries, suggesting that these cases are not isolated phenomena.”

From Columbia University Medical Center Newsroom, Nov. 5 2015. The Ophthalmic Genetics article “Laser induced photic injury phenocopies macular dystrophy” is not yet online as of this date, but can be found at the journal’s website.