Retinopathy

Retinopathy is a general term that refers to some form of non-inflammatory damage to the retina of the eye. Frequently, retinopathy is an ocular manifestation of systemic disease.

Pathophysiology
Causes of retinopathy are varied: Many types of retinopathy are progressive and may result in blindness or severe vision loss or impairment, particularly if the macula becomes affected.
 * diabetes - (causing diabetic retinopathy)
 * arterial hypertension - (causing hypertensive retinopathy)
 * prematurity of the newborn - (causing retinopathy of prematurity)
 * sickle cell disease
 * ciliopathy
 * direct sunlight exposure - (causing solar retinopathy)
 * retinal vein or artery occlusion
 * pheochromocytoma
 * Hyperviscosity-related retinopathy as seen in disorders which cause paraproteinemia

Retinopathy is diagnosed by an optometrist or an ophthalmologist during ophthalmoscopy. Treatment depends on the cause of the disease.

Relation of genetic retinopathies to other rare genetic disorders
Recent findings in genetic research have suggested that a large number of genetic disorders, both genetic syndromes and genetic diseases, that were not previously identified in the medical literature as related, may be, in fact, highly related in the genotypical root cause of the widely-varying, phenotypically-observed disorders. Thus, some genetically-caused retinopathies are the result of one or more underlying ciliopathies, an emerging new class of human genetic disorders. Other known ciliopathies include primary ciliary dyskinesia, Bardet-Biedl syndrome, polycystic kidney and liver disease, nephronophthisis, Alstrom syndrome, and Meckel-Gruber syndrome.