Eales disease is a rare vision disorder that appears as an inflammation and white haze around the outercoat of the veins in the retina. This condition is most common among young males and normally affects both eyes. In most cases, vision becomes suddenly blurred because the vitreous, the clear jelly that fills the eyeball behind the lens of the eye, seeps out. Treatment includes corticosteroids in the inflammation stage and photocoagulation in the proliferative stage of the disease. Visual prognosis is good if treatment begins early in the course of the disease. 

Depending on the disease stage, treatment may involve corticosteroids (systemic or periocular) and/or immunosuppressants (azathioprine, cyclosporine). Anti-tubercular therapy has been recommended by some authors, however this treatment remains controversial. Bevacizumab (Avastin), a monoclonal antibody, is sometimes used via intravitreal injection. This medication appears to induce regression of neovascularization. Laser photocoagulation has become the treatment of choice in patients in the proliferative stage of Eales disease. Vitreoretinal surgery may be required if recurrent vitreous hemorrhage occurs.

There may be other treatment options (for example, antioxidant vitamins A, C, and E) for Eales disease as well. We recommend that you discuss these and other treatment options with your partner's health-care providers.

You can find relevant articles on the treatment of Eales disease through PubMed, a searchable database of biomedical journal articles. Although not all of the articles are available for free online, most articles listed in PubMed have a summary available. To obtain the full article, contact a medical/university library or your local library for interlibrary loan. You can also order articles online through the publisher’s Web site. Using 'Eales disease AND treatment' as your search term should help you locate articles. Use the advanced search feature to narrow your search results. Click here to view a search.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) Web site has a page for locating libraries in your area that can provide direct access to these journals (print or online). The Web page also describes how you can get these articles through interlibrary loan and Loansome Doc (an NLM document-ordering service). You can access this page at the following link http://nnlm.gov/members/. You can also contact the NLM toll-free at 888-346-3656 to locate libraries in your area.