Overview
Deferoxamine, also known as desferrioxamine, is used to treat excess levels of iron in the blood due to haematological conditions such as thalassemia and haemochromatosis.
The clinical presentation is characterised by mottled pigmentary changes at the macula associated with reduced visual acuity, nyctalopia, optic neuropathy, cataract and colour vision abnormalities.
Fundus autofluorescence imaging typically shows speckled hyper-fluorescence which is typically more sensitive than fundus assessment.
OCT may show numerous confluent hyper-reflective deposits in the RPE, ellipsoid zone and choroid.
Electrophysiology testing shows significantly reduced photopic, scotopic, and 30-Hz flicker response amplitudes.
References
Arora, Anita & Wren, Siobhan & Gregory-Evans, Kevin. (2004). Desferrioxamine related maculopathy: A case report. American journal of hematology. 76. 386-8.
Wu, CH., Yang, CP., Lai, CC. et al. (2014) Deferoxamine retinopathy: spectral domain-optical coherence tomography findings. BMC Ophthalmol 14, 88.