Transcript
ReachMD Announcer:
You’re listening to Eye on Ocular Health on ReachMD. On this episode, we’ll hear from Dr. Jessica Randolph, who will be discussing retinal vein occlusion in younger patients. Dr. Randolph is an Assistant Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and a practicing vitreoretinal surgeon at Wagner Kapoor Institute in Richmond, Virginia.
Here she is now.
Dr. Randolph:
A case of retinal vein occlusion that I think about often is a younger patient that presented with a branch retinal vein occlusion. And it's important to consider, especially, younger patients that have vein occlusions, because they may be more likely to have blood clotting disorders. And so they need to be sent to hematology/oncology for a full workup for a clotting disorder, because that can have longstanding implications on their health, and they may need additional medications like blood thinners to treat it.
And so, if there is a young patient coming in with a vein occlusion, then I'm of course diagnosing the vein occlusion, looking to see if I think it's ischemic or non-ischemic, and treating any cystoid macular edema they may have. But I'm also asking about other review of systems—things like bleeding disorders in the family, miscarriages if they're female, or other things that could point towards a clotting disorder.
In general, some of these cases are harder to treat, because the cystoid macular edema can be non-resolving and they may require intensive treatment. It's also a difficult discussion to have with patients, because sometimes the vision doesn't recover. And that's the most important thing that we're treating—trying to get the vision better. And so, for some patients, especially with ischemic retinal vein occlusions, they may not recover their vision. And this can be a really difficult conversation.
ReachMD Announcer:
That was Dr. Jessica Randolph talking about considerations for treating retinal vein occlusion in younger patients. To access this and other episodes in our series, visit Eye on Ocular Health on ReachMD.com, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge. Thanks for listening!
