Original Articles Foveomacular retinitis, an important problem in military medicine: Epidemiology

Foveomacular retinitis is a term introduced by Dr. Fred Cordes to describe an eye disease first noted in Enlisted Naval Personnel during World War II. It is characterized by a subjective loss of central vision in association with a lesion of the fovea and perifovea which subsequently develops into a foveal cyst or hole. It was never fully accepted as a distinct clinical entity, but was thought to be synonymous with central serous retinopathy and, therefore due to mental stress. The psychiatric factors were ruled out by Ford, in 1970, in his case control study. Similar cases among Army personnel at Ford Ord, California, in which solar injury was admitted by 69 per cent of the patients, led to the conclusion that foveomacular retinitis was not a distinct entity but was actually solar retinitis. The findings of a study of foveomacular retinitis among Navy and Marine Corps personnel during the period 1965 to 1969 indicates that an outbreak of that disease did occur in 1969 and appeared to be limited to the San Diego Marine recruit group. A descriptive study of cases at the Naval Hospital, San Diego during the period January 1, 1968, and December 31, 1969, did not reveal any common findings among the patients which might have etiologic significance. The current controversy as to whether foveomacular retinitis and solar retinitis are one and the same cannot be solved at the present time but will require further study.