Cornea and External Diseases

Vortex Keratopathy

Vortex Keratopathy or Cornea Verticillata

Clinical Features

  • Symptoms: the corneal changes are rarely of any visual significance.
  • Signs:
    • Symmetric, bilateral, whorl-like pattern of powdery, white, yellow or brown corneal epithelial deposits
    • Appears in a vortex fashion in the inferocentral cornea and swirls outwards sparing the limbus
  • Occurs in Fabry's disease and in patients being treated with a variety of drugs including amiodarone, chloroquine, amodiaquine, meperidine, indomethacin, chlorpromazine and tamoxifen.
Bilateral corneal verticillata in a patient who is treated chronically with amiodarone.