Extending Retinal Impairment following Iron Intraocular Foreign Body

Abstract

The specific clinico-pathologic changes of the eye structures caused by the iron contents of intraocular foreign bodies described by von Graefe (1860) were termed siderosis bulbi by Bunge (1890). Since then, the fast industrialization process and the arms used in the last wars highly increased the incidence of iron intraocular foreign bodies, supplying wide clinico-pathologic material (Mayou, 1926; Gulliver, 1942; Loewenstein & Foster, 1947; Roper-Hall, 1954; Hoefle, 1968, Hollwich, 1976). Additional experimental electron microscopic (Barber et al., 1971; Masciulli et al., 1972; Yoo, 1976) and histochemical studies (Matsuo & Hasegawa, 1964; Hasegawa, 1964; Hasegawa, 1966) disclosed specific retinal changes in siderosis. However, the pathogenesis of the retinal disease is still far from being clear. The standard ERG, while cardinal for early diagnosis of siderosis and for prognostic evaluation (Karpe, 1957; Schmöger, 1957; Straub, 1961; Kozousek, 1965; Gorgone, 1966; Knave, 1969), provides only partial information regarding the complex retinal impairment. The purpose of the present study is to analyze and correlate the clinical and visual field changes with the results of fluorescein angiography as well as the electroretinogram (ERG) and electrooculogram (EOG) results in a patient with iron-containing magnetic foreign body on the retina of his single eye. The patient was followed for three years before and seven years after the foreign body was extracted.