Retinitis Pigmentosa

Definition
Epidemiology and Types of the disease
Symptoms and Prognose
Genetic
Associated conditions with RP
Diagnose
Alternative Treatment
Our Treatment Method
Success Rate

Definition

Retinitis Pigmentosa is an inherited, degenerative eye disease ; studied in the group of retinal dystrophies that causes severe vision impairment and leads to blindness. The progress of RP is variable ; while some patients with RP indicate the symptoms of disease in early years of life others may realise the symptoms in their later stages of life .In general; patients, showing the symptoms in later stages of life have more rapid deteriorations compared to others. But this is of course not a rule ; we have also seen many young patients before their 20’s with a very narrow visual field and low vision acuity.

Epidemiology

Worldwide there are more than five million people suffering from various forms of Retinitis Pigmentosa Cure. Often; RP appears in childhood / adolescence or in the middle ages with first symptom night blindness ; visual field and vision acuity decrease progressively. Most often the deterioration process is gradually. However; it can also lead to blindness stage very quickly. Slow deterioration of the disease is often associated with a physical concern. Almost sixty percent of RP patients develop cataract until adulthood.

Retinitis Pigmentosa Cure is a form of retinal dystrophies, and is caused by irregularity of photoreceptors ( rod and cone cells) or the retinal pigment epithelium of the retina ; giving rise to continuous vision loss and blindness.

There are two types of receptor dystrophies:

Rod dystrophy

Patients suffering from rod dystrophy have peripheral sight loss. These are the patients with tunnel vision. Night blindness stands in foreground.

Cone dystrophy

(dystrophy of cone cells, which are responsible for both central and color vision)

RP patients with cone dystrophy develop central vision loss and poor color vision.

There are many patients suffering from Rod-Cone dystrophy and both their peripheral and central vision are deteriorated or deteriorate gradually.

Signs, symptoms and Prognose of Retinitis Pigmentosa

Some of the possible symptoms of Retinitis Pigmentosa are :

Night blindness and Nyctalopia (insufficient adaptation to darkness)
Longer adaptation time (slow adjustment from dark to light or the opposite)
most often patients with RP can read white letters from black background better.
insufficient color discrimination ; failure of color perception
flickering vision ( Latticework vision)
blurring of vision
tunnel vision ( only central vision ; inability of peripheral sight)
peripheral vision ( inability of central vision; patients can’t see the details and have reading difficulties)
Visual field impairment, particularly in peripheric vision. Central vision survives at the beginning which causes tunnel vision. After the impairment of peripheric vision; central vision start to be deteriorated and this results in blindness at the end.
Myopie Magna ( high degrees of myopia ;more than 6 dpt ; not only far distance impairment but patients can also can’t see objects clearly that are away from 1 meter )
Astigmatism
Flashes and lightning in vision

In general , first symptom appearing is night blindness ,vision impairment and a slow decrease of visual field until a very tiny tunnel vision. In time the disease leads to blindness. Because of night blindness and always more declining tunnel vision ; after a particular time patients can not move alone without orientation strategies.

Retinitis Pigmentosa is a disease characterised by dysfunction of the light sensing photoreceptor cells (rod and cone cells) .Usually the rod cells ( responsible for night vision) are damaged at first, which explains why night blindness the first symptom is .Daytime vision loss ( cone cells are responsible for daytime vision ) doesn’t appear until the later stages of the disease. Stippling of the retinal pigment epithelium with black bone-spicule pigmentation is typically pathognomonic of retinitis pigments . Other ocular features are waxy pallor of the optic nerve head, attenuation( thinning) of the retinal vessels , cystic macular inflammation ( oedema) and posterior subcapsular cataract.

Complications:

Cataract
cystic macular inflammation and macular degeneration
Myopic
Astigmatism
Nystagmus
Glaucoma
Keratoconus

Genetic

More than 150 Gene play an important role in pathogenesis of Retinitis Pigmentosa. Most of the so far identified genes have a monogenetic inheritance, which means the defect of just one gene can lead to Retinitis Pigmentosa, whereas more genes together can also cause the same problem. The disease can follow through autosomal rezessive, dominant and gonosomal inheritance.

How do the mutations effect?

Some mutations operate through photoreceptors. These mutations have a destructive or function ruining effect on the receptor cells. Some photoreceptor cells are killed due to apoptosis where some of them just lose their function.

Other mutations have an affect on the function of RNA Splycing Complex.

Besides mutations; the disturbance of retinal blood vessels cause impairment of disease.

Associated conditions with Retinitis Pigmentosa Cure

RP is seen in a variety of diseases combined. Beside eyes there are also other organs involved with these syndromes. Therefore we can say, that Retinitis Pigmentosa Cure is a systemic disease. Some well known with RP combined symptoms are hearing disorders, paralysis, muscle weakness, migraine etc.

The most well known Syndroms are:

Usher Syndrom

Retinitis Pigmentosa combined with congenital or progressive deafness. There are three types of Usher Syndrome.

Usher Syndrome typ 1 : typ1 is the heaviest of all types. Patients are deaf from birth and Retinitis Pigmentosa can be until 10th year diagnosed.
Usher Syndrome typ 2 : there is a constant remaining but severely deafness, and RP will during adolescence diagnosed.
Usher Syndrome typ 3 : this is a mild form of Usher Syndrome and Retinitis Pigmentosa will most probably only in second half of life diagnosed.

Usher Syndrome treatment :

With our treatment of electro-acupuncture we successfully treat all types of Usher Syndrome. We have significant improvements on deafness and night blindness ( Retinitis Pigmentosa )

Bardet Biedl Syndrome :

Laurence Moon Bardet Biedl Syndrome is also a genetic disease.

Bardet-Biedl Syndrome characteristics:

Obesity
Diabetes Mellitus
Hypertension
Hypogenesis of Penis etc. ; Hypogonadism
Retinitis Pigmentosa and therefore resulting blindness
cognitive disability ( mental retardation )
polydactily (more than five fingers ; usually six)

Treatment of Bardet-Biedl Syndrome

Our technique provides significant improvements on obesity, Retinitis Pigmentosa , hypertension of Bardet Biedl Syndrome.

Refsum Syndrome

Over-Accumulation of Phytanic Acid in cells and tissues causes Refsum Disease. Patients with Refsum Disease may have several different degrees of neurologic damage and peripheral neuropathy. In common; the disease appears in childhood/adolescence with a progressive course. Symptoms also may include ataxia, hearing difficulties and eye problems such as cataracts, night blindness ( Retinitis Pigmentosa).

With our treatment there has been significant improvement seen on Retinitis Pigmentosa ( larger visual field , improved vision acuity etc ) and on phytanic acid levels. We have determined that the other neurologic and skin issues have also improved during our treatment.

Alport Syndrome

Alport syndrome is a genetic disorder characterised by glomerulonephritis, and hearing loss. It can also affect the eyes. Hematuria is almost always present in the urine (blood in the urine due to glomerulonephritis) Some patients can also suffer from Retinitis Pigmentosa associated with Alport Syndrome.

Retinitis Pigmentosa Cure Diagnose

A detailed medical history and eye examination indicates Retinitis Pigmentosa Cure. However; additional tests and exams are beneficial.

Visual field test : Visual field test is very important to diagnose and follow the prognosis of Retinitis Pigmentosa Cure. Usually VFT shows the specific tunnel vision of RP patients very clearly.
Ophthalmoscopy : an ophthalmologist examines the eye with a special magnifying glass.
Color defectiveness test : some of the RP patients have serious problems with identifying the colours. A color defectiveness test may help to determine whether cone cells function correctly or not.
Retinal examination : pigmentation of the retinal pigment epithelium with specific black-bone spicules; waxy pallor of the optic nerve head, attenuation of retinal vessels indicate Retinitis Pigmentosa.

Alternative Treatment Strategies

Although there are many researches for new treatment options of Retinitis Pigmentosa Cure, an effective treatment for RP couldn’t be presented. So-called new “Treatmentmethods” display considerable defects and are particularly very dangerous.

Here are some of them listed:

Gen Therapy

Adeno-Virus, A.A.V (Adeno-Associated Virus) and Lenti-Virus were used als vectors. However due to lots of death events and cancer caused by these trials Gen Therapies were since 2007 by FDA(Federal Drug Administration) entirely suspended.

NY Times Washington Post

Bionic Eye

Bionic eye were tried out by 23 Patients in 7 years.

Patients with more than 5% are not suitable for bionic eye. Because of the function of bionic eye with electricity permanent impairment of retina is unavoidable. Even if there would be no problems with the implantation of bionic eye, there will be only a black-white silhouette vision with 2 dimension possible.

Retinitis Pigmentosa Treatment in our clinic with Dr. Osman Firatli Methode

A very successful treatment for Retinitis Pigmentosa (rod-cone dystrophy) was first applied by Dr.Osman Firatli in our clinic.

We believe that our medically proven Success and the results of the treatment are much more precious than thousand words. These visual fields are thousandfold documented and can be called anytime if the patients request in this respect.

We have presented this by ourselves developed method in several World-Congresses many times.

ICMART 2007 Barcelona / Spain

ICMART 2008 Budapest / Hungary

ICMART 2009 Thessaloniki / Greece

ICMART 2010 Riga / Latvia

ICMART 2011 Den Haag / Holland

ICMART 2012 Athens / Greece

Success Rate

Since 2003 we practice this successful treatment over more than 5000 Patients suffering from Retinitis Pigmentosa , Stargardt’s Disease , Usher Syndrome , Bardet- Biedl Syndrome , Refsum and Alport Syndromes.

In medicine stopping the patient from getting worse is seen as a great success. For us ; we describe our success of treatment if any improvement of visual field test of patient is present. In this aspect, our success rate is more than 95 percent and the improving effect of our treatment is permanent. So the improvement thanks to our treatment is expected not to be damaged again.

Our retinitis pigmentosa treatment method and strategies are unique!