Human Fish Eye Disease

Despite its name, fish eye disease is indeed a human condition. While a lot of information if available on the symptoms, causes and even complications of the condition, not much is reported about its treatment. Wrong Diagnosis said a kidney transplant is one option if the disease leads to severe complications or health problems.

Causes

• The main cause behind fish eye disease is a body's lack of the enzyme lecithin:cholesterol acyltransferase, Wrong Diagnosis says. This condition comes about genetically, passed down from one generation to the next. The condition could also arise from metabolic disorders, namely the body's inability to properly metabolize cholesterol or blood fats, also known as lipids.

Symptoms

• Fish eye disease can impair your vision as well as produce two other symptoms, according to Wrong Diagnosis. One is low HDL cholesterol, the good cholesterol, which protects against heart disease. The optimum HDL level is 60 or higher while anything under 35 could put you at risk. The other symptom is cloudy spots on the cornea known as corneal opacities.

Complications

• The most serious complication from fish eye disease is chronic renal failure, Wrong Diagnosis says, and there are several others. They include proteinuria, or high levels of protein in the urine; hypertiglyceridaemia, or high levels of triglyceride in the blood; and hypercholesterolaemia. Others include low levels of lipoproteins and haemolytic anaemia, which is anemia caused by a breakdown of red blood cells.

Terminology

• Fish eye disease goes by several different names. Some are based on the type of deficiency, such as lecithin:cholesterol acyltranferase deficiency and alpha-lecithin:cholesterol acyltranferase deficiency, or simply LCAT or alpha-LCAT deficiency; and phosphatidylcholine-sterol scyltransfarase deficiency. Others terms include dyslipoproteinemic corneal dystrophy, Norum's disease and the fish eye disease acronym of FED.

Origin

• Lars A. Carlson and B. Philipson coined the term "fish eye disease" after meeting a family in Sweden who had cloudy spots on their eyes, making their eyes resemble those of boiled fish. A father and his three daughters all suffered from the condition. The two researchers published their article "Fish-eye disease. A new familial condition with massive corneal opacities and dyslipoproteinaemia," in the Nov. 3, 1979, issue of the medical journal Lancet.