Patients in New York who have received a diagnosis for their retinal symptoms may want to ask for a second opinion. It’s not necessarily the doctor’s fault: Conditions that relate to the eye tend to be highly complex and difficult to distinguish from one to the another. But the consequences for patients with a misdiagnosed retinal condition, the consequences may be severe.
The level to which some of these conditions resemble each other makes it challenging for even the most trained eyes to notice the difference. This means that highly serious and vision-threatening conditions are mistaken for more benign ones; when this happens, it’s important to seek legal representation.
Unfortunately, the misdiagnosis of ocular disorders remains a common occurrence. To combat this, doctors working in eye care have placed new emphasis on the conditions that most commonly present misleading symptoms.
Some of the most commonly misdiagnosed retinal conditions include:
- Central retinal vein occlusion
- Retinoschisis
- Macular hole
A prime example is a patient who, after presenting with an elevated retina, is then mistakenly diagnosed with a retinal detachment when retinoschisis is truly to blame. Since retinal detachment is such a serious condition, the patient is often recommended to have unnecessary surgery.
A better-educated medical community
With more attention placed on the problematic conditions, doctors are more aware of the care they must take when looking for symptoms. The eye-opening data of how frequently these misdiagnoses have been occurring has sparked a new wave of better information-sharing to compact this problem.
With how closely some conditions mirror one another, it’s critical that doctors pay careful attention to their patient’s symptoms. It takes an attentive and open medical mind informed by up-to-date information to correctly diagnose the conditions behind these misleading retinal symptoms.