The irrational yet irrestible urge to know or make known.
The CC is a "club" founded by a small group of medical professionals, who have made a pastime of turning medical cases and discussions into medically irrelevant history lessons, philosophical rants, and displays of one-upsmanship. The official premise, since the "club" was named, has been to exchange and discuss various books, movies, and ideas. Sometimes we eat sushi.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Another Ophthalmological Condition
This is a 30 year old female who has noticed these "yellow spots" on her eyes for about a year. There is no pain or other complaint. She just wants to know what they are. Anyone care to have a go at it?
Joe and I had a conversation about pterygia and pingueculae. He mentioned the pterygium entry in Wikipedia which explains why they tend to develop on the nasal aspect of the eye. Here is the excerpt:
When associated with the conjunctiva, a pterygium commonly grows from the nasal side of the sclera. It is caused principally by ultraviolet-light exposure (e.g. sunshine). It appears predominantly on the nasal side because the cornea acts as a lens for sunlight on the medial/nasal side but not on the lateral/temporal side, owing to the shadow cast by the nose.
We had a hard time making that work, but since we are admittedly not experts in physics or opthamolgy, I asked our opthamologist friend. The short version of his response was that the Wikipedia entry must have been written by an optometrist because there is no medical science in that explanation. I don't have the same bias against optometry that he does so I will refrain from commenting further about who might have written it. I will however invite anyone who is interested to give further discourse on this subject.
I vote for subscleral fat deposits. Initially I would think pterygium, but she is not too old and although the location is right it looks
ReplyDeletefatty.
Even though I know 30 somethings that have pterygium.
I thought the bossman would jump in with pterygium but you saved yourself. It is a pinguecula.
ReplyDeleteJoe and I had a conversation about pterygia and pingueculae. He mentioned the pterygium entry in Wikipedia which explains why they tend to develop on the nasal aspect of the eye. Here is the excerpt:
ReplyDeleteWhen associated with the conjunctiva, a pterygium commonly grows from the nasal side of the sclera. It is caused principally by ultraviolet-light exposure (e.g. sunshine). It appears predominantly on the nasal side because the cornea acts as a lens for sunlight on the medial/nasal side but not on the lateral/temporal side, owing to the shadow cast by the nose.
We had a hard time making that work, but since we are admittedly not experts in physics or opthamolgy, I asked our opthamologist friend. The short version of his response was that the Wikipedia entry must have been written by an optometrist because there is no medical science in that explanation. I don't have the same bias against optometry that he does so I will refrain from commenting further about who might have written it. I will however invite anyone who is interested to give further discourse on this subject.
Thanks for the follow up, but if you continue with eye related subjects you need to add another "h" to ophthalmology.
ReplyDeleteYou got me. I corrected the heading. I missed two letters the last time I spelled it in the comments.
ReplyDeleteSo what is the final verdict? pinguecula?
ReplyDeleteYes, pinguecula was the verdict that we finally agreed upon in the off-line smackdown.
ReplyDelete