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A Rare Cause of Bilateral Corneal Ulcers: Vitamin A Deficiency in the Setting of Chronic Alcoholism

Vitamin A deficiency is rarely encountered in the western world. When encountered, vitamin A deficiency is seen as a component of the malabsorption spectrum of disease. Given the infrequency of nutritional deficits in the developed world, vitamin A-associated ophthalmologic disease is rarely encount...

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Autores principales: Sohal, Raman J, Aung, Thu Thu, Sohal, Sandeep, Harish, Abha
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cureus 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7274257/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32523846
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.7991
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author Sohal, Raman J
Aung, Thu Thu
Sohal, Sandeep
Harish, Abha
author_facet Sohal, Raman J
Aung, Thu Thu
Sohal, Sandeep
Harish, Abha
author_sort Sohal, Raman J
collection PubMed
description Vitamin A deficiency is rarely encountered in the western world. When encountered, vitamin A deficiency is seen as a component of the malabsorption spectrum of disease. Given the infrequency of nutritional deficits in the developed world, vitamin A-associated ophthalmologic disease is rarely encountered. We report a case of a 56-year-old male with severe vitamin A deficiency in the setting of alcoholic liver cirrhosis. This case emphasizes two important points. First, it considers vitamin A deficiency as a cause of corneal ulceration in patients with chronic alcoholism. Second, it raises awareness of hepatotoxicity that can result after the supplementation of vitamin A in patients with chronic alcoholism. Although an uncommon diagnosis, it should be considered when other causes, such as infectious and autoimmune conditions, are ruled out.
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spelling pubmed-72742572020-06-09 A Rare Cause of Bilateral Corneal Ulcers: Vitamin A Deficiency in the Setting of Chronic Alcoholism Sohal, Raman J Aung, Thu Thu Sohal, Sandeep Harish, Abha Cureus Internal Medicine Vitamin A deficiency is rarely encountered in the western world. When encountered, vitamin A deficiency is seen as a component of the malabsorption spectrum of disease. Given the infrequency of nutritional deficits in the developed world, vitamin A-associated ophthalmologic disease is rarely encountered. We report a case of a 56-year-old male with severe vitamin A deficiency in the setting of alcoholic liver cirrhosis. This case emphasizes two important points. First, it considers vitamin A deficiency as a cause of corneal ulceration in patients with chronic alcoholism. Second, it raises awareness of hepatotoxicity that can result after the supplementation of vitamin A in patients with chronic alcoholism. Although an uncommon diagnosis, it should be considered when other causes, such as infectious and autoimmune conditions, are ruled out. Cureus 2020-05-06 /pmc/articles/PMC7274257/ /pubmed/32523846 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.7991 Text en Copyright © 2020, Sohal et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Internal Medicine
Sohal, Raman J
Aung, Thu Thu
Sohal, Sandeep
Harish, Abha
A Rare Cause of Bilateral Corneal Ulcers: Vitamin A Deficiency in the Setting of Chronic Alcoholism
title A Rare Cause of Bilateral Corneal Ulcers: Vitamin A Deficiency in the Setting of Chronic Alcoholism
title_full A Rare Cause of Bilateral Corneal Ulcers: Vitamin A Deficiency in the Setting of Chronic Alcoholism
title_fullStr A Rare Cause of Bilateral Corneal Ulcers: Vitamin A Deficiency in the Setting of Chronic Alcoholism
title_full_unstemmed A Rare Cause of Bilateral Corneal Ulcers: Vitamin A Deficiency in the Setting of Chronic Alcoholism
title_short A Rare Cause of Bilateral Corneal Ulcers: Vitamin A Deficiency in the Setting of Chronic Alcoholism
title_sort rare cause of bilateral corneal ulcers: vitamin a deficiency in the setting of chronic alcoholism
topic Internal Medicine
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7274257/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32523846
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.7991
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