Polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy is not rare in Caucasian patients presenting with occult choroidal neovascularization. The fundus abnormalities seen in such eyes overlap with the typical manifestations of AMD. Whereas the prognosis after photocoagulation of peripapillary polypoidal lesions appears to be relatively good, it is more guarded for macular or arcade lesions.

Alport syndrome is an inherited disease characterized by progressive renal failure, hearing loss, and ocular abnormalities. Mutations in the COL4A5 (X-linked), or COL4A3 and COL4A4 (autosomal recessive) genes result in absence of the collagen IV a3a4a5 network from the basement membranes of the cornea, lens capsule, and retina and are associated with corneal opacities, anterior lenticonus, fleck retinopathy, and temporal retinal thinning. Typically, these features do not affect vision or, in the case of lenticonus, are correctable. In contrast, the rarer ophthalmic complications of posterior polymorphous corneal dystrophy, giant macular hole, and maculopathy all produce visual loss. Many of the ocular features of Alport syndrome are common, easily recognizable, and thus, helpful diagnostically, and in identifying the likelihood of early-onset renal failure. Lenticonus and central fleck retinopathy strongly suggest the diagnosis of Alport syndrome and are associated with renal failure before the age of 30 years, in males with X-linked disease. Sometimes, ophthalmic features suggest the mode of inheritance. A peripheral retinopathy in the mother of a male with hematuria suggests X-linked inheritance, and central retinopathy or lenticonus in a female means that recessive disease is likely. Ocular examination, retinal photography, and optical coherence tomography are widely available, safe, fast, inexpensive, and acceptable to patients. Ocular examination is particularly helpful in the diagnosis of Alport syndrome when genetic testing is not readily available or the results are inconclusive. It also detects complications, such as macular hole, for which new treatments are emerging.

We emphasize the relatively favourable visual prognosis in patients suffering from inherited retinal dystrophies complicated with choroidal neovascularization. Therapeutic approaches other than laser treatment could be attempted in these patients.

We present a family with autosomal-dominant inheritance of renal insufficiency caused by renal hypoplasia in six individuals. In all affected individuals, signs of optic disk dysplasia were detected, but most patients were asymptomatic. A heterozygous missense mutation in the PAX2 gene causing a Gly75 to Ser substitution was present in all affected individuals. A second, unrelated patient presented with ocular complaints related to optic disk dysplasia, and had a history of vesico-ureteral reflux. A heterozygous hexanucleotide duplication in the PAX2 gene was detected leading to the duplication of GluThr at positions 74 and 75. The mutations in these two families are the first mutations in the PAX2 gene that do not lead to a truncated protein. Mechanistically, these mutations are expected to result in abnormal folding of the PAX2 protein. These observations further expand the spectrum of clinical features associated with PAX2 mutations, and suggest that a distinct genetic disorder can be identified in patients with renal dysplasia through a careful eye examination. As the ocular manifestations in this syndrome are variable anomalies of retinal and optic disk dysplasia, we prefer the term "papillo-renal syndrome".

Pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE) is a hereditary disease characterized by progressive dystrophic mineralization of the elastic fibres. PXE patients frequently present with skin lesions and visual acuity loss. Recently, we and others showed that PXE is caused by mutations in the ABCC6/MRP6 gene. However, the molecular pathology of PXE is complicated by yet unknown factors causing the variable clinical expression of the disease. In addition, the presence of ABCC6/MRP6 pseudogenes and multiple ABCC6/MRP6-associated deletions complicate interpretation of molecular genetic studies. In this study, we present the mutation spectrum of ABCC6/MRP6 in 59 PXE patients from the Netherlands. We detected 17 different mutations in 65 alleles. The majority of mutations occurred in the NBF1 (nucleotide binding fold) domain, in the eighth cytoplasmatic loop between the 15th and 16th transmembrane regions, and in NBF2 of the predicted ABCC6/MRP6 protein. The R1141X mutation was by far the most common mutation identified in 19 (32.2%) patients. The second most frequent mutation, an intragenic deletion from exon 23 to exon 29 in ABCC6/MRP6, was detected in 11 (18.6%) of the patients. Our data include 11 novel ABCC6/MRP6 mutations, as well as additional segregation data relevant to the molecular pathology of PXE in a limited number of patients and families. The consequences of our data for the molecular pathology of PXE are discussed.