Anti-retinal antibodies and their role in autoimmune retinopathy / 中华实验眼科杂志

Autoimmune retinopathy (AIR) is a group of immune-mediated retinopathies that usually results in severe loss of vision and visual field defects.AIR mainly includes paraneoplastic and non-paraneoplastic syndromes.One main feature of AIR is the presence of circulating anti-retinal antibodies (ARAs) in peripheral blood, which are produced through anti-tumor responses, anti-microbial responses, and immune responses induced by autoantigen fragments following retinal injury, and mainly attack retinal photoreceptor cells.ARAs are important for the diagnosis, progression assessment and treatment outcome of AIR.These ARAs often appear before the diagnosis of cancer and can be helpful for the early detection of malignant tumors.The mechanism of ARAs production, its pathological role in AIR, and its significance in clinical practice were reviewed in this article.

Research progress of autoimmune retinopathy / 中华实验眼科杂志

Autoimmune retinopathy (AIR) is a rare immune retinopathy characterized by decreased visual acuity, scotoma, visual field defect, and photoreceptor dysfunction.AIR is divided into paraneoplastic AIR (pAIR) and non-neoplastic AIR (npAIR). pAIR is further divided into cancer-associated retinopathy (CAR), melanoma-associated retinopathy (MAR), and bilateral diffuse uveal melanocytic proliferation (BDUMP). Circulating anti-retinal antibodies often exist in peripheral blood of patients with various types of AIR, accompanied by electroretinogram abnormalities, but no significant abnormality in fundus examination (except BDUMP). A variety of anti-retinal antibodies such as anti-recoverin protein antibody and anti-α-enolase antibody have been identified in the serum of AIR patients.However, anti-retinal antibodies can also be negative in some AIR patients' serum.At present, the diagnostic criteria and laboratory examination criteria for AIR are not uniform, and there are large differences in clinical examination performance among patients, which may lead to misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis.Therefore, a thorough examination is required to rule out other possible causes before making a speculative diagnosis.So far, the treatments for different types of AIR are not unified.Most clinicians choose a combination of various immunomodulatory therapies, including systemic or topical application of corticosteroids, intravenous immunoglobulin, plasmapheresis, and the use of antimetabolites or anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody.The clinical characteristics of different AIR types, serum anti-retinal autoantibodies detection, differential diagnosis and treatment prognosis of AIR were reviewed in this article to improve the understanding of clinicians and researchers toward the disease, and to achieve early diagnosis and early treatment of AIR.

Non-Paraneoplastic Autoimmune Retinopathy: The First Case Report in Korea

Autoimmune retinopathy (AIR) is an immune-mediated retinopathy, resulting from an immunologic process caused by the aberrant recognition of retinal antigens as autoantigens. The diagnosis of AIR involves the detection of antiretinal antibodies with concurrent clinical and electrophysiological evidence of retinopathy. A 40-year-old patient presented with progressive loss of bilateral vision over several months. A fundus examination was unremarkable. Spectral domain optical coherence tomography revealed a blurred photoreceptor ellipsoid zone at the subfoveal region in both eyes with more prominent disruption in the left eye. Full-field electroretinography (ERG) showed relatively normal rod and cone responses in the right eye, and decreased photopic bwaves with minimal attenuation of a-waves in the left eye. Multifocal ERG demonstrated slightly reduced amplitude of the inner segment ring in the right eye and decreased amplitudes and delayed latencies of all modalities in the left eye. The patient was suspected to have AIR and it was supported by positive Western blots for 23-kDa protein, enolase (46-kDa), aldolase (40-kDa), 62-kDa and 78-kDa proteins and by immunohistochemical staining of human retinal bipolar and ganglion cells. Despite the immunosuppressive treatment, the destruction of the retinal photoreceptors progressed, and immunosuppressive interventions produced very little visual improvement. We report on what is, to the best of our knowledge, the very first case of serologically confirmed nonparaneoplastic AIR in Korea.

A Case of Nonparaneoplastic Autoimmune Retinopathy

PURPOSE: To report a case of nonparaneoplastic autoimmune retinopathy diagnosed using serum anti-retinal autoantibodies. CASE SUMMARY: A 60-year-old female complained of progressive visual loss in both eyes over 3 months. Her best corrected visual acuity was hand motion in the right eye, 0.9 (decimal) in the left eye, and no definite abnormal findings were identified on fundus examinations. Automated visual field test revealed severely depressed visual fields in both eyes. Standard full-field electroretinogram (ERG) revealed nearly extinguished scotopic b-waves and spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) showed subtle obscuration and interruption of the inner segment/outer segment (IS/OS) junction of the photoreceptors. Using Western blotting with human retinal proteins and the patient's serum, we diagnosed nonparaneoplastic autoimmune retinopathy and performed posterior subtenon steroid injection in the right eye, systemic corticosteroids, and oral mycophenolate mofetil. Full-field ERG after treatment showed slightly increased amplitude but there was no subjective visual improvement. OCT after treatment did not reveal significant changes in the photoreceptor layer. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first reported case of nonparaneoplastic autoimmune retinopathy in Korea diagnosed using Western blotting with anti-retinal autoantibodies. Autoimmune retinopathy should be considered in patients with visual field and ERG impairment without definite fundus abnormalities.