algerbrush

RE: algerbrush

Robert Lowe — Sat, 14 Jan 2017 23:36:21 GMT

Hi Beats

As in understand it:

Spontaneous as in no apparent cause for the epithelium suddenly not being there, just one day its fine and the next there is an ulcer (not idiopathic as this suggests an unknown cause but also spontaneous sounds more fun). Obviously there is an underlying cause in terms of the hyalinised anterior stroma.

Chronic as in hasn't healed within 7 days as all non complicated ulcers should do. i.e. if you manually removed an epithelium from normal stroma across an entire cornea then it would re-epithelialise within a week.

Not a daft question at all

Rob

RE: algerbrush

Beats — Sat, 14 Jan 2017 22:06:16 GMT

[quote user="Robert Lowe"]spontaneous chronic corneal epithelial deficit (SCCED)[/quote]

Rob, I've always wondered re "spontaneous" and "chronic" in this phrase, they're not words i commonly see side by side. is the chronic referring to a disease process that was present before the apparently acutely (spontaneous) sore eye, or is the chronic referring to what would happen if you didn't treat it, or does the chronic refer to a subset of superficial ulcers with a rim of non-adherent epithelium that fail to heal in couple of weeks after debriding/scoring?

[I know its a silly question, but i'm sure i'm not the only one wondering and someone has to ask and i don't mind looking daft!]

RE: algerbrush

Robert Lowe — Sat, 14 Jan 2017 18:42:07 GMT

We love it for treating spontaneous chronic corneal epithelial deficit (SCCED) but like all treatment methods we get occasional failures and secondary infections. I think the post-treatment fibrosis is far less with this treatment than any other method such as grid or punctate keratotomy or phenol.