[Retinal vascular occlusion in antithrombin III deficiency]

Deficiency of Antithrombin III (AT III), which is one of the main inhibitors of blood coagulation, may lead to severe thrombosis and embolism. The authors detected AT III deficiency in two patients with retinal vessel occlusion. Both patients were otherwise healthy. One had recurrent retinal vein thrombosis, the other cilioretinal occlusion. To the authors' knowledge, only one case of retinal vessel occlusion with AT III deficiency has been reported in literature. Furthermore, in the patients reported here retinal vessel occlusion may have been caused by AT III deficiency, which has considerable therapeutic and prophylactic consequences for patients with this disorder. AT III should therefore be determined in retinal vessel occlusion of unknown cause.