Retinal Detachment: Explained | Cincinnati Children's

Retinal Detachment: Explained
a GlobalCastMD production

Eniolami Dosunmu, MD: "Hello, everyone. My name is Eniolami Dosunmu, and I’m a pediatric ophthalmologist at Cincinnati Children’s and I work with the CHARGE Center. I’m here today to talk to you about the C in CHARGE and how that pertains to retinal detachments. So the C in CHARGE stands for Coloboma which is incomplete closure. If you have an incomplete closure of the eye it can affect the retina the choroid or the optic nerve. A retinal detachment occurs when the retina comes off the wall of the eye. And the retina helps us gather the information we see and then sends it to the brain. So if the retina comes off the wall of the eye, you can lose vision.
In my clinic when I see a child with CHARGE, I look at the Colobomas and I think of four important things 1. Location 2. Size 3. Borders and 4. Optic nerve involvement. Let’s quickly run through those.
1. Location is the coloboma intra macula or extra macula? The macula is where we get our best vision. 2. Size how big is the coloboma cause that will determine how big a visual field defect it creates. 3. Borders where the coloboma joins with the retina that is normally developed. We can have tears in the retina and those can lead to retinal detachments. So it’s important for you to see all around the coloboma to make sure there are no such areas of weakness. And 4. Whether or not the optic nerve is involved? Imagine with me a pipe that comes into house. If there is a leak in that it can easily get under the wall paper and push off the wallpaper. In the same manner if the optic nerve is involved fluid can come through and push off the retina.