Incidence of Eye Complications Among Sickle Cell Disease Patients in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: A Cross-sectional Study

Introduction: Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a heritable blood disorder resulting in deformed, rigid red blood cells, rendering them more prone to vaso-occlusion. Ocular complications are known to affect multiple organs through the body's vasculature. Here, we evaluated the incidence of eye complications in patients with SCD at King Abdulaziz Medical City in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Materials And Methods: We used a cross-sectional approach and collected relevant medical data from nine patients with SCD. Ophthalmic assessment included visual acuity and an in-clinic dilated fundus examination. All patients were asked to attend the ophthalmology clinic to undergo optical coherence tomography (OCT) angiography, macular OCT scan, and fundus photography. The results of the imaging tests were interpreted by a certified ophthalmology consultant specializing in retinal diseases. Descriptive analyses of the results were also performed.

Results: The mean age of the nine patients was 24.78 ± 10.9 years. All patients were non-hypertensive, one had type 1 diabetes, and another had type 2 diabetes. Five patients had normal visual acuity, two had slight impairments in at least one eye, and two had moderate impairment in at least one eye. One of the nine patients exhibited retinal ischemia in the right eye despite normal macular thickness (visual acuity, OD, 6/30; OS, 6/21). The remaining eight patients showed no ocular abnormalities.

Conclusion: Of the nine patients with SCD, five showed no symptoms of ocular complications. One patient showed retinal ischemia in the right eye, despite a normal macular thickness. This study's results suggest routine ophthalmologic examination may not be able to detect or monitor macular or retinal abnormalities unless augmented with detailed imaging techniques.