Windows on the Fundus: Retinal Changes in Ocular and Systemic Diseases- Glaucoma, Retinal Degeneration, Diabetes Mellitus, Hypertension, Syphilis, and HIV

This article reviews the retinal changes of six major disease domains: glaucoma, in which the retinal ganglion cells and their axons die in characteristic patterns now measurable to within microns by optical coherence tomography; the retinal degenerations, dominated by age-related macular degeneration and the inherited dystrophies such as retinitis pigmentosa; diabetic retinopathy, the archetypal microvascular disease and a leading cause of working-age blindness; hypertensive retinopathy, the vascular signature of systemic blood pressure; ocular syphilis, the great mimicker resurgent in the antibiotic era; and the retinal manifestations of HIV infection, from cotton-wool spots to the necrotizing devastation of cytomegalovirus retinitis.