Unilateral retinitis pigmentosa with amblyopia in the fellow eye

The purpose was to report a case of unilateral retinitis pigmentosa with amblyopia in the other eye.

Eight years ago, a 36-year-old woman complained of peripheral visual field loss in her left eye when she covered her right eye. Complete ophthalmological examinations including fundus photography and fluorescein angiography, full-field electroretinography, dark adaptation, and microperimetry were performed.

Best-corrected visual acuity of the patient was 0.2 with +2.5 diopters in her right eye and 0.3 with +1.5 diopters in her left eye. Fundus examination did not reveal any abnormalities in the right eye, but narrow retinal vessels, optic disc pallor, and peripheral retinal pigment clumping was found in the left eye. The full-field electroretinography was normal in the right eye, but rod response, cone response, and combined response were non-recordable, and 30-Hz response was very small in the left eye. Dark adaptation thresholds were normal in the right eye, but were dramatically elevated in the left eye. Microperimetry was normal in the right eye, but the visual field was reduced to a 2x5 degrees central field in the left eye.

Unilateral retinitis pigmentosa with amblyopia in the other eye is a rare condition. The patient presented here had a case of unilateral retinitis pigmentosa with the other eye with ametropic amblyopia. It is necessary to perform functional and morphological ophthalmological examinations to confirm the diagnosis.