Marked Visual Loss Research Articles

Retinal Injury from a Welding ARC

An 18-year-old man stared at a welding arc for approximately ten minutes, sustaining moderate facial erythema, keratoconjunctivitis, marked visual loss, a pupillary abnormality, and a retinal injury accompanied by a dense central scotoma and peripheral field constriction. A residual, partially pigmented foveal lesion remained after 16 months, with normal visual acuity. Since the degree of keratoconjunctivitis and facial erythema was known, we substantiated the duration of exposure to the arc by weighting the known action spectrum of moderate ultraviolet erythema with the ultraviolet spectral irradiance measurements of the arc. From the radiometric measurements of the visible brightness and visible and near infrared spectrum of the arc and from knowledge of pupil size, we calculated the retinal exposure dose rate, which was less than normally considered necessary to produce a chorioretinal burn. This case may provide a clinical example of photic maculopathy recently reported in experimental investigations. (auth)

Metastatic uveal choriocarcinoma. Report of a case with improvement after chemotherapy.

A 19-year-old pregnant woman with weight loss and pulmonary infiltrates was found to have metastatic choriocarcinoma. A concomitant marked visual loss was associated with multiple elevated choroidal lesions in both eyes. Treatment with methotrexate resulted in clinical remission and striking improvement of vision and fundus appearance.