Damage causing Retinal stroke

Retinal stroke is the most common cause of serious disability in adults and is projected to overtake coronary heart disease as the most common cause of death. Present stroke risk prediction has several shortcomings. First, a significant proportion of stroke morbidity is not explained by the traditional risk factors, such as hypertension, diabetes, and cigarette smoking, particularly in young people aged <45 years, in which more than one third are diagnosed with cryptogenic stroke. Second, the contribution from some of the traditional risk factors to stroke risk is difficult to quantify. Measured blood pressure, for example, is a “snap shot” measurement in time.

The aim of this review is to summarize the present evidence on the association between retinal signs and stroke. We reviewed 6 groups of retinal signs: hypertensive retinopathy signs, retinal vessel diameter, diabetic retinopathy signs, retinal arteriolar emboli, retinal vein occlusion, and age-related macular degeneration, and we concentrated on population-based studies which used retinal photography to document retinal signs

Causes of retinal stroke

Retinal stroke is caused by poor circulation in the blood vessels that supply the front portion of the optic nerve. The optic nerve is the cable that connects the brain to the eye and carries millions of nerve fibers and blood vessels. Although an eye stroke can occur from a total blockage of a blood vessel that feeds the optic nerve, it is more commonly caused by a lack of pressure or perfusion of the tissue. Blood pressure may change relative to the eye pressure and the normal flow of blood is reduced. If the optic nerve's nutrient and oxygen supply is cut off, nerve tissue is damaged and lost, resulting in vision loss. Eye stroke is caused by poor circulation in the blood vessels that supply the front portion of the optic nerve.

They further put emphasis on considering inclusion of retinal venular caliber in prediction models containing stroke risk factors, which can reassign intermediate risk stroke category to lower risk. All the above studies strongly suggest that it will be worth understanding and imaging retina for early detection of pathophysiological changes after stroke. Moreover, this will be important step forward in improving treatments for stroke since, it can provide sufficient molecular information which can be targeted for therapeutics after stroke. Moreover, retinal damage after stroke has not been given paramount importance in the stroke treatment regime. However, the retinal damage caused by stroke and other complicated diseases is difficult to differentiate at this stage.

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