In recent years，there are more and more cases of retinal infectious diseases in China，however，the diagnosis and management of those patients are still big challenges for our ophthalmic clinicians. It is our top priority to improve their capacity of early diagnosis for those diseases. We need to know the relationship between retinal infectious diseases and systemic infections, their predisposing factors. We also need to be familiar with the typical as well as atypical clinical features of those diseases. Vitreoretinal surgery already becomes a powerful tool to make diagnosis of retinal infectious diseases now；we need to make full use of this tool combined with modern technologies of microbiology, cytology, immunology and molecular biology to provide objective scientific evidences for the early diagnosis of retinal infectious diseases.
Citation： Gezhi Xu Wenji Wang. Retinal infectious diseases: the importance of early diagnosis. Chinese Journal of Ocular Fundus Diseases, 2008, 24(6): 397-399. doi: Copy