Review Article

Functional and Structural Abnormalities in Deferoxamine Retinopathy: A Review of the Literature

Table 1

Summary of cases with DFO retinopathy in the literature.

Author, yearPatients with DFO retinopathyDFO
administration
DFO durationRetinal
findings (patients)
Elettrophysiology
findings (patients)
Visual field findings (patients)

Davies et al., 1983 [11]2IVERG: abnormal
Arden et al., 1984 [14]18SC4 to 5 yearsRPE hyperpigmentationEOG: subnormal (12); ERG: reduced cone function (7); PERG: reduced responses (18)Visual field constriction
Lakhanpal et al., 1984 [12]7IVMacular and peripheral RPE mottling
Blake et al., 1985 [15]3IV5 to 12 daysPigmentary retinopathy and macular RPE mottlingEOG: abnormal; ERG: subnormal
Rahi et al., 1986 [16]1IM and then SC and then IV24 yearsERG: subnormal; EOG: abnormalVisual field constriction and central scotoma
Olivieri et al., 1986 [9]5SCMacular RPE mottling
Bene et al., 1989 [13]1
Ravelli et al., 1990 [17]5IV5 monthsMacular RPE mottling (4)EOG: abnormalCentral scotoma (1)
Cohen et al., 1990 [10]2Macular RPE mottling (1)
Mehta et al., 1994 [18]1SC
Haimovici et al., 2002 [6]16SC (5) and IV then SC (2), IV (1), IP (1), and NK (7) 1 month to 10 yearsRPE opacification (5) and RPE mottling (14)ERG: reduced cone and rod function; EOG: abnormal
Bansal et al., 2003 [19]126 yearsBull’s eye maculopathy
Kertes et al., 2004 [23]1SC18 monthsMacular RPE mottlingMultifocal ERG: reduced responses
Arora et al., 2004 [20]1IV3 yearsMacular RPE mottlingERG: normal rods responses, reduced cone responses
Hidajat et al., 2004 [22]1SC2 yearsMacular RPE mottlingEOG: flat or subnormal
Gonzales et al., 2004 [21]2SC (1) and IV (1)11 months (SC); 3 years (IV)RPE mottling (1) and vitelliform lesion (1) ERG: reduced cone responses; EOG normal (1)
Lai et al., 2006 [24]1SC and then IV14 years (SC); 4 months (IV)Macular and peripheral RPE mottlingERG: reduced cone and rod responses; EOG: abnormal
Lu et al., 2007 [25]1SC36 yearsPigmentary retinopathyERG: reduced rod responsesCentral, paracentral scotoma
Baath et al., 2008 [26]1SC1 to 17 yearsMacular RPE mottlingERG: reduced rod responses
Genead et al., 2010 [27]1IM and then SC20 yearsVitelliform lesion and RPE mottlingERG: normal cone and rode functionCentral scotoma
Simon et al., 2012 [28]1SC and then IV23 years (SC); 10 weeks (IV)Macular RPE mottlingERG: reduced cone and rod responses; EOG: abnormalVisual field constriction
Viola et al., 2012 [29]18SC10 to 55 years Pattern dystrophy-like changes (8) and minimal RPE mottling (10)
Wu et al., 2014 [30]1SC and then IV20 years (SC); 42 days (IV)Macular and peripheral RPE mottling

DFO: deferoxamine; RPE: retinal pigment epithelium; IV: intravenous; SC: subcutaneous; IP: intraperitoneal; IM: intramuscular; NK: unknown; ERG: electroretinogram; EOG: electrooculogram.