About the disease
Cornea detachment is damage of an eye. Person loses visual acuity due to such detachment. It is a very dangerous disease as it can result in full or partial blindness. In fact most cases of blindness happen due to detached cornea. Today cornea detachment is considered to be one of the most difficult eye surgeries. Diagnosis of cornea detachment became possible only when ophthalmoscope was invented. If person has detached cornea, his peripheral and main vision suffer. Nowadays out of 40,000 people 2 suffer from cornea detachment. Fortunately, cornea detachment can be surgically cured, although there can be a number of difficult post-surgical complications.
The main causes of cornea detachment are:
- Myopia, which is another eye disease
- Trauma to eyes, which was acquired in an accident
- Diabetes
- Retinal degeneration
- Eye tumor
If a person has relatives who suffered from detached cornea, he/she are in risk group. Also people after 60-65 years of age can develop it, because eyes lose mobility and strength.
Among diseases that can lead to cornea detachment are dystrophy, diabetes and retinal tear. If person has hormonal dysfunction, he can also develop cornea detachment. Certain eye injuries also provoke development of cornea detachment. Diabetes often precedes degeneration of cornea. It happens because of high sugar level destroys the nerve endings and certain cells, that are responsible for the work of eye. When cornea detachment begins its detrimental process at eye periphery, loss or decrease of peripheral begins. At this point a person needs immediate eye surgery to quickly restore cornea structure, otherwise patient may become blind. To avoid blindness, surgery needs to be done in the first weeks or even days after first symptoms appearance, since detrimental process develops very quickly and is irreversible. Outcome of surgery depends on whether detrimental process of cornea detachment reached macula. Macula is the central part of an eye. Recovery after cornea detachment surgery can be difficult. Self-recovery of cornea happens only in exceptional cases and it lasts for an extremely short period of time, which means that there is probability of cornea detachment recurrence in future.
Cornea detachment has primary and secondary forms. Primary form occurs as a result of damage in the eye. The secondary form can develop during hemorrhage, stroke, tumor development, inflammation and injury acquired in an accident.
By origin cornea detachment can be divided into traumatic, degenerative, idiopathic groups. People who have myopia are in risk group. They need to be examined regularly. Also elderly people with diabetes, degenerative, hereditary diseases or severe inflammatory eye ball disease and pregnant women can develop it, if precautionary measures were not carried out.
Symptoms
Successful outcome of cornea detachment treatment fully depends on the time when patient visited eye doctor and when he noticed cornea detachment symptoms. The sooner doctor identifies nature of disease and its causes, the sooner patient can begin detached cornea treatment.
Detached cornea symptoms include:
- Pain in the eye
- Blurredness
- Veil, which usually appears at the front of the eyes
- Nausea
- Headaches
- Dark spots in front of eyes
- Sparks, lightning in eye
- Eye distortion
- Inability to focus vision on different objects
In some cases patients with cornea detachment say that their vision improves after a long night sleep. This can be explained by the fact that horizontal body position moves cornea back into its place. When person takes vertical position again, cornea is once again moving from choroid, so visual defects are renewed.
Diagnosis
Diagnosis of detached cornea does not present difficulties for ophthalmologist. Special microscope allows doctor examine all parts of eye lens and see slightest changes in cornea. Special lamp can also show the detachment.
Treatment
Methods of treatment is chosen strictly individually for each patient, because every case is individual and medicine that helped some groups of patients could be not effective for another group. Cornea detachment can not be treated by pills, any kind of eye drops or certain eye injections. The only possible chance to preserve cornea is surgery.
To restore cornea patient may need to choose among several surgery options.
- Laser photocoagulation for cornea detachment can performed right after diagnosis. During this procedure the laser beam is directed to the place of the gap. This method is considered to be a good option because it does not require surgery, the recovery period is short, swelling and irritation of the eyes is only slight.
- During cryopexy surgeon fixes cornea`s tissues using special frost. Under general or local anesthesia frost can cure cornea defect at the place of rupture. Cryopexy can also leave a small scar. Cryopexy stands for cryo, which means cold. Recovery of cornea detachment can last longer than photocoagulation recovery period. There can be swelling, redness of eye and eyes can fatigue fast. Cryopexy is most effective in the peripheral cornea breaks.
After resolving the problem, patients needs to follow the steps:
- No stress, when eyes can be under pressure
- No physical exercise, which increases heart rate
- No bathing in very hot water, sauna
- No cooking on hot oven
Fumes, high temperatures can reduce the effectiveness of cornea detachment treatment and slow cornea recovery of eyes. Medical treatment for cornea detachment, such as special gels and eye drops may reduce swelling, irritation and improve metabolism in eyes.
Authors: Dr. Nadezhda Ivanisova, Dr. Sergey Pashchenko
