Diabetic retinopathy

[Besse]

I was wondering if anyone had heard of a procedure called radioactive retinography ? If yes, could you explain what it consists in ?
It might have been used in the 50s as a treatment for diabetic retinopathy.

Thanks for your help,

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[Andrew_Doan]

In proliferative diabetic retinopathy, the goal is to destroy peripheral retina to decrease the ocular load of vascular growth factors, such as VEGF. Currently, panphotocoagulation laser or cryotherapy is used to destroy peripheral retina with the goal of maintaining central vision.

I am not familiar with "radioactive retinography". I bet the goal was to destroy "bad" retina to preserve "good" retina with radiation before the advent of modern lasers and cryotherapy techniques (~1970s). But from the term "retinography", it also sounds like a method of imaging the retina before fluorescein angiography (~1960s)?

 

[Retinamark]

I haven't heard of this treatment either, but it certainly would be a very bad treatment for diabetic retinopathy.

In DR, the problem starts with loss of retinal capillary pericytes. Radiation damages retinal capillary endothelial cells, and simultaneous damage to both of these cells is a cumulative insult to the retinal capillaries & makes the retinopathy worse. This is why radiation retinopathy is much worse in diabetics. The neurosensory retina itself, like the CNS, is relatively radioresistant & so radiation treatment would only make the ischaemia worse without decreasing metabolic load.

Maybe it was a diagnostic test of some sort. Andrew makes a good point that retinography sounds like some sort of imaging procedure.