Utilising Narrative Medicine to Identify Key Factors Affecting Quality of Life in Dry Eye Disease: An Italian Multicentre Study.

Introduction: Despite an improved understanding of its pathogenesis, dry eye disease (DED) remains relatively underestimated and its treatment challenging. A better alignment between the clinical evaluation and the patient self-assessment also requires capturing the whole patient experience of DED. This project aimed to unveil this experience through narrative medicine (NM).

Endophthalmitis associated with intravitreal injections: office-based setting and operating room setting.

Purpose: To report on the occurrence of endophthalmitis after intravitreal injections (IVI) in two different settings: office-based and operating room.

Methods: Consecutive case series. Retrospective review of all patients who underwent IVI by 2 physicians between January 2009 and December 2011.

Amelanotic cellular blue nevus: an unusual iris localization.

The authors describe the first case of eye amelanotic cellular blue nevus reported in literature and discuss the main differential diagnosis.

Bilateral progressive visual loss in an epileptic, mentally retarded boy.

Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) is a maternally inherited, monosymptomatic disorder, characterized by severe central vision loss and optic atrophy that most frequently affects young men. The classic LHON phenotype is associated to three mitochondrial DNA mutations, mostly homoplasmic, in the Mt-ND4, Mt-ND6, and Mt-ND1 genes, encoding for complex I subunits of the mitochondrial respiratory chain. Rare cases have been described in the literature in association with variable central nervous system involvement in a syndromic form called LHON 'plus.

A case of sympathetic ophthalmia after a severe acanthamoeba keratitis.

Purpose: To report a case of sympathetic ophthalmia (SO) after a severe Acanthamoeba keratitis.

Methods/design: Interventional case report.

Results: A 59-year-old white woman, wearing contact lenses, developed a severe Acanthamoeba keratitis in the left eye, which involved the limbus, and required 8 months of intensive antiamoeba therapy; the condition resolved leaving a painful, phthisical eye with complete corneal neovascularization.

Chorioretinal lacunae: pathognomonic findings for Aicardi syndrome.

Aicardi syndrome is characterized by agenesis of the corpus callosum, chorioretinal lacunae, and infantile spasms. The authors describe the case of a girl with chorioretinal lacunae, seizures, and cerebral cyst, but a normal corpus callosum. Incomplete forms of Aicardi syndrome are reported in the literature, but typical choroidal lacunae are always present and are pathognomonic.

Masquerade syndrome of multicentre primary central nervous system lymphoma.

Purpose. In Italy we say that the most unlucky things can happen to physicians when they get sick, despite the attention of colleagues. To confirm this rumor, we report the sad story of a surgeon with bilateral vitreitis and glaucoma unresponsive to traditional therapies.

Orbital pseudotumor in a child: diagnostic implications and treatment strategies.

Orbital pseudotumor is a benign, idiopathic, non-infectious and non-neoplastic clinical syndrome characterized by the presence of an inflammatory mass at orbital level with no identifiable cause. The disease is rarely observed in the pediatric population. This article describes a relapsing bilateral orbital pseudotumor in a young girl.

Transient myopic shift as the presenting symptom of systemic lupus erythematosus: a UBM study.

Purpose: To report ultrabiomicroscopy (UBM) evidence of choroid effusion as a cause of acute transient myopia in the onset of systemic lupus erythematosus.

Design: Observational case report.

Methods: A Caucasian 16-year-old girl was referred to the Hematology Department for progressive anemia, intermittent fever, and blurred vision.

Hypertensive uveitis as a feature of multiple myeloma.

Purpose: To report a masquerade syndrome secondary to multiple myeloma iris infiltration.

Design: Observational case report.

Methods: A 74-year-old Caucasian woman presenting with unilateral hypertensive uveitis and past medical history significant for multiple myeloma underwent aqueous cytology and a trabeculectomy with iridectomy.

Orbital cavitary rhabdomyosarcoma: a diagnostic dilemma.

The authors present a rare form of orbital cavitary rhabdomyosarcoma in which lymphangioma was mistakenly diagnosed on the basis of echography and MRI. Rhabdomyosarcoma can usually be differentiated from lymphangioma by echographic and MR imaging, because cavitation is very rare in orbital rhabdomyosarcoma, but rhabdomyosarcoma should be suspected whenever the clinical presentation of a rapidly progressive unilateral exophthalmos is observed in a child.

Primary central nervous system lymphoma presenting as bilateral uveitis in an immunocompetent hepatitis C virus(+) patient: a case report.

Background: To report a case of masquerade syndrome presenting as bilateral uveitis in an HCV positive patient, and to highlight the difficulties in distinguishing between chronic uveitis and malignancy-induced inflammation.

Case Report: In January 2005 a 54-year-old Caucasian man was referred to the Ophthalmological Department for bilateral visual loss, severe vitritis, and a significant cataract in both eyes. His clinical history was significant for HCV infection.