Stanford Launches Rare Eye Disease Center with $10 Million Gift

Rare Daily Staff

Stanford University has launched the Stanford Health Care Center for Optic Disc Drusen thanks a $10 million anonymous gift.

Optic disc drusen (ODD) is a vision robbing condition that is caused by tiny deposits of calcium phosphate in the area where the optic nerve connect the eyes to the brain. The deposits can cause peripheral vision loss, extra blind spots and, in some cases, blindness.

Scientists don’t know what causes ODD or how to treat it. The gift, made last year, created what is believed to be the world’s first optic disc drusen center.

“I’ve been studying patients and learning about ODD over the years,” said Joyce Liao, a neuro-ophthalmologist at Stanford Health Care and director of the Center for Optic Disc Drusen, which is housed at Stanford’s Byers Eye Institute. “But now we can really accelerate our knowledge about ODD — how to preserve vision and even restore visual function.”

The researchers plan to build a registry of people with the disease and track the progression of their condition over time. Not everyone who shows signs of the disease develops vision problems and researchers want to understand why and better predict which patients will lose vision.

They’ll also plan to explore whether there is a genetic component to the condition. When one parent has ODD, there’s a 50 percent chance his or her child will, too. Some patients, though, have no family members with the disease.

Liao said that better awareness about the disease will likely help scientists tackle other eye conditions, such as ischemic optic neuropathy and glaucoma. “In understanding an orphan disease like ODD, we learn a lot about other related diseases,” she said.

Photo: Joyce Liao, a neuro-ophthalmologist at Stanford Health Care and director of the Center for Optic Disc Drusen