WITH a single possible exception,1 the coincidence of retinitis pigmentosa and Coats' disease, each occurring bilaterally, has not previously been documented in the ophthalmic literature. Recently two young female patients with this unique combination were observed and treated at the Ophthalmology Branch of the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness. It is the purpose of this report to document this unusual combination of apparently unrelated conditions
In 1956, Zamorani1 described the case of a 16-year-old girl with retinitis pigmentosa and Coats' disease involving the right eye. It was a fair assumption made by the author that a similar coincidence of these conditions existed in the left eye, but due to advanced lenticular opacities in that eye this could not be substantiated by fundus evaluation. Psychophysical testing was not done.
A clear definition of Coats' disease is not universally shared, but in our opinion the concurrence of massive