Eyesight checks under new scrutiny
A new Australian eyesight study has found that there is frequent misdiagnosis of potentially serious eye problems by local doctors, hospital emergency departments, and even by optometrists.
Researchers analysed the records of 1,062 new patients who presented to the specialist eye emergency services of the ophthalmology departments of two major Brisbane hospitals. When examined at the hospitals it was found that more than half had been misdiagnosed or left too long before being referred for specialist treatment.
Most of the patients were treated successfully but 123 suffered serious consequences that could have been prevented. Anthony Pane, a study author from the Queensland Eye Institute and Mater Hospital said that “picking up serious eye disease in general practice is like finding a needle in a haystack”.
“The challenge for GPs is to identify those rare patients with serious sight threatening disease who should be urgently referred for ophthalmologic care”.
He said he decided to conduct the study after forming the impression from his own experience that some GPs were missing serious eye emergencies and treating rare eye conditions as conjunctivitis.
The study authors have defined three key warning symptoms which should prompt a referral.
If people have eye pain, excessive sensitivity to light, or blurred vision – alone or in combination – it is unlikely to be conjunctivitis. These symptoms indicate serious eye disease and should be treated by an eye specialist immediately.
