Lattice corneal dystrophy type 1. Image from Wikipedia.
Corneal dystrophies are clinically fairly rare (with notable exceptions) but have pretty easily identifiable appearances. Because we have learned quite a bit about the genetics, inheritance, etc. about many of the dystrophies, this seemed to be a pretty popular topic on tests – though it seemed like in the past few years the number of questions on corneal dystrophies decreased quite a bit. I don’t know the minds of the test-writers, so who knows if it was a random thing, or if there was more emphasis on clinically significant questions.
In any case, recurrent corneal erosions/abrasions are fairly common. While we typically consider trauma as one of the common causes, epithelial/anterior basement membrane dystrophy (EBMD/ABMD, map-dot-fingerprint dystrophy) is also a common cause of recurrent corneal erosions. To help me remember the various corneal dystrophies that cause recurrent erosions, I came up with a mnemonic: “Grass Erodes My Little Red Truck”:
- Granular (rarer)
- EBMD (map-dot-fingerprint)
- Meesmann / Macular (rare)
- Lattice (common)
- Reis-Buckler
- Thiel-Behnke
Do you have a different or better way to remember corneal dystrophies that cause recurrent erosions? Leave a comment or contact us!