CASE REPORT
Vitamin B12 Deficiency as a Cause of Neurotrophic Keratopathy
Nader Nassiri1, 2, Farhad Assarzadegan3, Mansoor Shahriari1, 2, *, Hamid Norouzi1, 2, Sara Kavousnezhad2, Nariman Nassiri4, Kourosh Sheibani5
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2018Volume: 12
First Page: 7
Last Page: 11
Publisher ID: TOOPHTJ-12-7
DOI: 10.2174/1874364101812010007
Article History:
Received Date: 24/10/2017Revision Received Date: 30/01/2018
Acceptance Date: 01/02/2018
Electronic publication date: 28/02/2018
Collection year: 2018
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Introduction:
Neurotrophic keratitis is a rare degenerative corneal disease caused by an impairment of trigeminal corneal innervation, leading to a decrease or absence of corneal sensation. Here, we present a case of neurotrophic keratopathy caused by B12 deficiency in a 34 years old man who had a progressive decrease in visual acuity and corneal involvement since 3 months before being referred to our ophthalmology clinic.
Result and Discussion:
Based on our clinical findings and with the diagnosis of B12 deficiency we started B12 treatment for the patient. After 3 weeks the patient showed a dramatic response with corneal sensation reversal, an increase of visual acuity, improved neurotrophic keratopathy and significantly improved neurological findings. To the best of our knowledge, there is no report regarding vitamin B12 deficiency induced keratopathy and this is the first report that describes this aspect of vitamin B12 deficiency.