Retinitis Pigmentosa (Eye Electrical Therapy)

Eye Electrical Therapy (Transcorneal Electrical Stimulation (TES)) can be employed in treating the degenerative retinal diseases (Retinitis Pigmentosa, Cone Dystrophy, Best Vitelliform Dystrophy, etc.), the traumatic and ischemic optic nerve damages and the central and branch retinal artery occlusions.

Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), commonly also known as night blindness, is a common genetic retinal disease affecting approximately 1 in 4000 persons.

While the disease may have three different genetic transitions, it may also emerge sporadically. It is also possible for the disease to develop as part of various syndromes, like the cases associated with congenital hearing impairment. Having over one hundred genetic mutations identified until the present, the disease may have tens of different clinical forms. The disease, leading to progressive destruction of the retinal cells, causes the narrowing of the visual field of the patient over the years. Emerging in the peripheral retina, the disease also brings about the impairment of the central vision in time, resulting in a narrow visual field, called the tunnel vision, in the patient.

The RP patients may develop early cataract and macular edema with possible treatment-resistance, which conditions adversely affect the process of the disease. The cataract is treated surgically, while systemic drugs, topical drops or intraocular drug injections are employed for the macular edema.

The use of the electrical stimulation therapy for this disease as well as other retinal degenerations is mainly based on the principle of delaying the retinal damage by enabling the release of the retinal growth factors and the dilatation of the retinal vessels. Making the cells, which are damaged but not dead and are sleeping in a sense, functional again by means of this therapy could also lead to the remission in the clinical findings of the patient.

The therapy slows down the progression of the disease by conserving the retinal nerve cells. As a result of the studies conducted, it was scientifically demonstrated that it could be possible via this therapy to ameliorate the visual field losses and improve the functions of the retinal cells. One of the most significant characteristics of this therapy is the possibility for the patient to apply the therapy at home after a while. In the results of the electrical therapy we applied to our patients, the curative effect of this therapy on the central vision, color vision and visual field especially in the patients with early and mid phase retinitis pigmentosa was shown by the findings of examinations and tests.

The eye electrical therapy is a safe and easily practicable method causing no damage to the patient. The therapy is performed in the form of weekly half-hour applications. Prior to this therapy in our clinic, a comprehensive ophthalmologic examination is given and the therapy decision is taken according to the results of the electroretinography (ERG), visual field (VF) and optic coherence tomography (OCT) tests applied to the patient.

Although such a therapy’s becoming available after a long time for RP and similar retinal diseases is gladsome, it should not be forgotten that the therapy is more effective in the early- and mid-phase patients with small loss of visual field.

ASSOC. PROF. M. NECATİ DEMİR