Features

Tamoxifen retinopathy

Disease
Madhu Nagar, Dr Dimitrios K Tsouris and Sabitha Bandi describe an unusual manifestation of ocular adverse response to tamoxifen

It is well recognised that chemo-therapy and radiotherapy for cancer may be associated with vascular complications, though it is not clear whether these complications are as a result of drugs, malignancy itself or some other unrelated factor.

We report here on an atypical case of retinopathy associated with tamoxifen therapy for breast carcinoma.

CASE REPORT
A 34-year-old female, diagnosed with right breast carcinoma in October 1999, was started on tamoxifen (20mg daily) after wide local excision. In April 2001, due to recurrence, she underwent a right radical mastectomy and radiotherapy.

She was referred by her optometrist in June 2003 because of abnormal retinal findings during routine ophthalmic examination. By then she had received a total dose of 26g of tamoxifen over a 44-month period.

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