[Various types of manifest and masked diaretinal and non-diaretinal choroiditis].

Since 1952 138 eyes with "retinochoroiditis juxtapapillaris" as described by Jensen, and directly comparable changes have been examined with subtile differentiating methods. Section I describes, in 78 eyes, the immediately recognizable, manifest forms; Section II, in 60 eyes, the masked forms concealed either initially or permanently by other phenomena in the fundus. In both groups there were patients in whom the juxtapapillary inflammatory focus appeared alone (solitary forms, 87 eyes) or associated with further typical plaques of new or old, disseminated or circumscribed, paracentral, equatorial, or peripheral choroiditis (combined forms, 51 eyes). Of the 78 eyes with manifest solitary or combined juxtapapillary choroiditis, 35 had a complete and irreversible sector-shaped or arcuate visual field defect as described by Jensen. However, a further 35 eyes clearly deviated from this: in 11 the sector-shaped or arcuate defect was complete and reversible, in 6 it was incomplete and irreversible, and in 3 it was incomplete and reversible. In 15 eyes with an apparently identical inflammatory focus there was merely an enlargement of Mariotte's blind spot commensurate with it in localization, configuration, and extent. Particularly noteworthy were 8 eyes in which a peripheral focus had caused the complete and irreversible sector-shaped visual field defect which Jensen considered exclusively characteristic of the juxtapapillaries described by him. Taken overall, the present author's investigations led to the fundamental finding that every inflammatory focus originating in the choroid, localized in any part of the fundus (juxtapapillary, paracentral, equatorial, or peripheral), can cause a scotoma corresponding to the focus to develop into an incomplete to complete, reversible to irreversible sector-shaped or arcuate defect in the visual field.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)