Robert W. A. M. Kuijpers

Treatment of Cystoid Macular Edema with Octreotide

To the Editor: Idiopathic cystoid macular edema is an uncommon form of retinal edema that is refractory to treatment with drugs such as acetazolamide1 that are used in patients with other types of macular edema.2,3 We describe the beneficial effect of octreotide in a patient with this disorder. A 21-year-old man was found to have moderate color-vision defects at routine examination. One year later, he noticed blurred vision. His visual acuity was 20/50 in the right eye and 20/40 in the left eye (Snellen chart). Because he had bilateral cystoid macular edema, he was treated with diclofenac eye drops, .xa0.xa0.

Low prevalence of NOD2 SNPs in Behçet's disease suggests protective association in Caucasians

OBJECTIVEnIt has been shown previously that three nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain containing 2 (NOD2) variants (Arg702Trp, Gly908Arg and Lue1007fs) are associated with Crohns disease (CD), a disorder clinically resembling Behçets disease (BD). We studied the frequency of these variants in BD patients.nnnMETHODSnDNA samples of 200 BD patients [59 Caucasians, 139 Middle Easterns (MEs) of Arab descent and 2 Asians] and 520 healthy controls (444 Caucasians and 76 MEs) were genotyped using a Taqman assay.nnnRESULTSnBoth the Arg702Trp and Leu1007fs (frameshift) variants were significantly less frequently present among BD patients compared with healthy controls (0.5 vs 5.8%; P < 1.10(-5) and 0.0 vs 1.8%; P < 0.007, respectively). In the Caucasian subpopulation, Arg702Trp was significantly less frequent in the BD group as compared with the controls (P = 0.04); whereas in the ME subpopulation, a trend was observed (P < 0.06).nnnCONCLUSIONSnOf the three CD-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms, one of the variant NOD2 alleles, was found to be present significantly less in Caucasian BD patients.