OCULAR MANIFESTATIONS OF CHRONIC RENAL FAILURE

Abstract

Chronic renal failure is the chronic deterioration of renal function, resulting in a build up of a nitrogenous wastes in the plasma and failure of the kidney to regulate extracellular fluid volume or composition. The common causes of renal failure are: infective, obstructive uropathy, acquired, functional, congenital lesions, nephrotoxic drugs and glomerulonephritis. The complications of CRF are: electrolyte disorders, cardiovascular, skeletal. haematological neurologic, gastrointestinal, cutaneous and imunological disturbances. The ophthalmic changes in CRF may be due to: systemic diseases that cause CRF, metabolic effect of CRF or therapy of CRF. The aim of this work was to detect any ocular manifestations in patients with chronic renal failure. This study was carried out on 52 patients with CRF. All of them were under regular haemodialysis. We found the following ocular manifestations: Conjunctival calcifications in 98.1% of cases, corneal calcifications in 88.5%, lOP. changes in all cases, cataractous changes in 23.5%, posterior segment changes in the form of uraemic hypertensive retinopathy in 5.8%, diabetic retinopathy in 17.3%, CRVO in 5.8%, and exudative retinal detachment in l.9%.