What is the rarest eyes in the world?

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asked Jul 29, 2023 in Eye Health by Twinkisoes (1,030 points)
What is the rarest eyes in the world?

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answered Dec 6, 2023 by waitforme (13,460 points)
The rarest eyes in the world are green eyes which are found in just 9 percent of people.

45 percent of people have brown eyes and 18 percent of people have hazel eyes and 27 percent of people have blue eyes.

Green is considered by some to be the actual rarest eye color in the world, though others would say it's been dethroned by red, violet, and grey eyes.

The rarest medical eye condition is retinoblastoma which is the most life threatening and rarest eye condition as it's a cancer that affects the retina.

Retinoblastoma is a cancer that starts in the retina, the very back part of the eye.

Retinoblastoma eye cancer is the most common type of eye cancer in children.

Rarely, children can have other kinds of eye cancer, such as medulloepithelioma, or ocular (eye) melanoma.

The eye disease that has no treatment or cure is stargardt disease.

The life expectancy with stargardt disease is the same as a person without stargardt disease as stargardt disease does not affect a persons general health or life expectancy.

Stargardt disease progresses pretty quickly when it first comes on and then the longer you have stargardt the slower it progresses.

The stages of stargardt disease are.

Stage 1 which is characterized by flecks that are confined to the macula.

Stage 2 which is characterized by extension of flecks beyond the macula.

Stage 3 which is characterized by predominantly reabsorbed flecks.

Stage 4 which is characterized by extensive atrophy of your retinal pigment.

The new treatment for Stargardt's disease is a medication called gildeuretinol (ALK-001)

Stargardt disease is a genetic disease and is passed on to a child if both parents carry the recessive gene, where each parent has a recessive Stargardt gene paired with a normal gene.

Stargardt disease is not the same as age related macular degeneration although stargardt disease is a form of macular degeneration that is inherited.

The difference between stargardt's disease vs best disease is that best's disease has a yellow cyst that forms under your macula and stargardt's disease causes yellowish flecks in and under your macula.

The amount of people in the US or U.S. that have Stargardt disease is estimated to be between 30,000 to 200,000 people.

People with Stargardt disease can still see although it can cause severe problems with their central vision.

Although most people with Stargardt disease retain their peripheral vision so they won't lose their eyesight completely.

Stargardt disease does not always lead to complete blindness although it's possible.

However with Stargardt disease your vision gets worse and worse where it can be hard to see and make it difficult to do everyday tasks.

The complications of Stargardt disease are vision loss, problems with night vision and problems with color vision.

The yellow flecks in Stargardt's disease are Fundus flecks that are pisiform, round or dot like yellow white lesions.

Those yellow flecks in Stargardt's disease translate the accumulation of lipofuscin in the RPE although they can also represent areas of regional depigmentation and atrophy.

Stargardt disease usually starts by the age of 6 to 12 and most cases of Stargardt disease are diagnosed in people under 20 years of age.

Those with Stargardt disease will usually begin to find it difficult to adapt from dark to light or light to dark surroundings.

Although some people may not have any symptoms of Stargardt disease until adulthood.

Stargardt disease cannot be prevented although you can help slow the vision loss with Stargardt disease by wearing a hat and sunglasses to protect the eyes from sunlight when you are outside.

Stargardt does run in families and is passed on in families in an autosomal recessive pattern.

What this means is that someone with Stargardt will have two changed copies of the ABCA4 gene.

The will then have inherited one changed copy from their father and the other copy from their mother.

Stargardt disease is caused by mutations in the adenosine triphosphate binding cassette transporter 4 (ABCR 4) gene and is inherited in an autosomal recessive pattern.

It is a heterogeneous disease with a myriad of clinical presentations, which vastly vary in the age of onset and the disease progression rates.

Stargardt disease is a rare genetic eye disease that happens when fatty material builds up on the macula — the small part of the retina needed for sharp, central vision.

Vision loss usually starts in childhood — but some people with Stargardt disease don't start to lose their vision until they're adults.

Children with Stargardt often first experience symptoms between the ages of 6 and 12.

They may begin to find it difficult to adapt from dark to light or light to dark surroundings (known as 'dark-adaptation').

However, some do not have any symptoms until adulthood.

Stargardt disease is usually diagnosed in people under the age of 20.

Stargardt disease is the most common form of juvenile macular degeneration.

Although it's unlikely to cause complete blindness, the loss of central vision can make it difficult to do everyday tasks.

You may find it helpful to use low vision aids.

Currently, Stargardt disease can't be prevented. Nor are there specific treatments.

But certain lifestyle measures can help slow vision loss.

At the same time, new therapies are showing promise in clinical trials.

Stargardt disease progresses the most quickly when it appears early.

Adult onset cases are possible, and usually progress more slowly.

Beyond that, rates of disease progression vary widely, from about 0.28 to 1.58 mm2 of loss per year.

One promising study involves delivering a healthy version of the gene that causes Stargardt disease, ABCA4, into retinal cells to restore production of the normal protein.

Gildeuretinol is the first and only medicine in clinical development to treat Stargardt disease by reducing vitamin A dimerization in the eye, without affecting normal vision.

It decreased vitamin A dimerization by more than 80% and prevented blindness in a genetic animal model of the disease in preclinical trials.

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