Nisar Ahmed Siyal, Zaheer Sultan, Muhammad Idrees Adhi.
Frequency of lattice retinal degeneration in emmetropes and myopes.
J Dow Uni Health Sci Jan ;7(1):30-4.

Purpose: To determine the frequency of lattice retinal degeneration in emmetropes and myopes. To assess the relationship between the frequency of lattice degeneration and the axial myopia. Material and Methods: Two hundred patients attending the outpatient were selected. One hundred and four (52%) patients were females and 96 (48%) were males. The mean age was 26.50 years ± 8.63 (range= 12 to 60 years).These were then grouped according to their refractive status into, 100 cases of emmetropes (group I), 50 cases of myopia less than -6.00 dioptre (D) (group II) and 50 cases of myopia of -6.00 (D) or more (group III).. A complete ocular examination included indirect ophthalmoscope, slit lamp biomicroscopy with Goldman’s 3 mirror and 90D lens. Selected cases were photographed with the pan fundus camera. The axial length was evaluated by A-Scan ultrasound. The data thus obtained were analyzed on SPPS 13. Results: Twenty patients (10%) out of 200 patients studied showed the evidence of lattice retinal degeneration. Eight (40%) were male and 12 (60%) were female. Six (30%) were less than 20 years of age, 10(50%) between 20-40 years and 4(20%) were more than 40 years. Four (20%) cases out of 20 patients showed unilateral lattice degeneration. Right eye was involved in 3 (15%) while left eye in 1 (5%). In remaining 16(80%) cases the lattice was bilateral. Atrophic holes within lattice were seen in 3(15%) patients. The lattice retinal degeneration was found in 3 patients (3%) in one hundred emmetropes (group I) and 17 patients (17%) in one hundred myopes (group II and III). The difference in frequency of lattice degeneration in emmetropes and myopes was statistically significant (p=0.001). Group II with low myopia showed lattice degeneration in 7(14%) patients while group III with high myopia showed lattice degeneration in 10(20%) patients. Five patients (62.6%) in Group III with myopia between -12.1 D and -15 D had the highest evidence of lattice degeneration, which was interestingly also seen on higher side in 5(18.6%) patients in Group II with myopia between of -0.1 D to -3.00 D. Mean axial length in 400 eyes of 200 patients was noted to be 24.4860 milimeter (mm) ± 2.1426 SD (range= 22.11–31.10 mm). The mean axial length in emmetropes (Group I) was 22.9736 mm ± 0.4739 SD (range= 22.11 to 24.64 mm) while mean axial length in myopes (Group II and Group III) was 25.9984 mm ± 2.0934 SD (range= 22.12–31.10 mm). The highest frequency 6(46.1%) was noted in myopic eyes with axial length between 28.01–30.00 mm (-11.00 D to -14.00 D). A high frequency 6(21.4%) of lattice degeneration was also seen in low myopic eyes of axial length between 24.01–26.00 mm (-2.00 D to -5.25 D). Conclusions: Ten percent of the patients in this study showed the evidence of lattice degeneration. It was noted in both emmetropes as well as in low and high myopic groups but more common in high myopia. There was strong relationship between incidence of lattice and the axial length of the eye and high myopia.

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