Retinitis pigmentosa in association with acromegaly: a case report.

Retinal abnormalities, unrelated to visual pathway compression, in acromegalic patients were originally described by Small in 1972 (Smail JM. Primary pigmentary degeneration of the retina and acromegaly in a case of pituitary adenoma. Br J Ophthalmol 1972; 56: 25-31). He illustrated a case of primary pigmentary degeneration of the retina occurring in a patient with a chromophobe adenoma of the pituitary gland. To the best of our knowledge this remains the sole, published case of this association. We report on two male patients, with an acromegalic appearance, one caused by a pituitary adenoma, the other associated with a Rathke's cleft cyst, presenting to our department of ophthalmology with the clinical picture of pigmentary degeneration of the retina.

An ocular model of Adenovirus type 5 infection in the rabbit.

Adenoviruses are a common cause of viral eye disease in humans. Recently, new antiviral drugs have been developed, which possess promising anti-adenovirus activity. In order to test these drugs, an ocular model of adenovirus infection was developed in 10 Hollander rabbits following topical, intrastromal and subconjunctival inoculation with a standard laboratory serotype (Adenovirus type 5 from The American Type Culture Collection). Clinical signs of infection-conjunctivitis, keratitis, corneal edema, subepithelial opacities, anterior chamber reaction and iritis-were evaluated. Adenovirus was isolated from the eye several days after inoculation and intra-epithelial viral replication was detected using the replica-technique. Reproducible ocular infection was clinically demonstrated in all rabbits.