A cone dystrophy is an inherited ocular disorder characterized by the loss of cone cells, the photoreceptors responsible for both central and color vision. Presentation
The most common symptoms of cone dystrophy are vision loss (age of onset ranging from the late teens to the sixties), sensitivity to bright lights, and poor color vision. Therefore, patients see better at dusk. Visual acuity usually deteriorates gradually, but it can deteriorate rapidly to 20/200; later, in more severe cases, it drops to "counting fingers" vision. Color vision testing using color test plates (HRR series) reveals many errors on both red-green and blue-yellow plates. Dystrophy of the rods and cones
Dystrophy of the light-sensing cells of the eye may also occur in the rods as well, or in both the cones and the rods. A type of rod-cone dystrophy—where rod function decline is typically earlier or more pronounced than cone dystrophy—has been identified as a relatively common characteristic of Bardet–Biedl Syndrome.At least one type of autosomal dominant cone-rod dystrophy is caused by mutations in the guanylate cyclase 2D (not geometrical) gene (GUCY2D) on chromosome 17. Mechanism
The pathogenesis of cone dystrophy has yet to be elucidated. It appears that the dystrophy is primary, since subjective and objective abnormalities of cone function are found before ophthalmoscopic changes can be seen. However, the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) rapidly becomes involved, leading to a retinal dystrophy primarily involving the macula.
Pseudallescheria boydii is a species of fungus classified in the Ascomycota. It is associated with some forms of eumycetoma/maduromycosis and is the causative agent of pseudallescheriasis. Typically found in stagnant and polluted water, it has been implicated in the infection of immunocompromised and near-drowned pneumonia patients. Treatment of infections with P. boydii is complicated by  resistance to many of the standard antifungal agents normally used to treat infections by filamentous fungi.Pseudallescheria boydii fungal infection was the cause of death in three athletes submerged in the Yarkon River after a bridge collapsed during the 1997 Maccabiah Games. Taxonomy
The fungus was originally described by American mycologist Cornelius Lott Shear in 1922 as a species of Allescheria. Shear obtained cultures from a patient of the Medical Department of the University of Texas. The microbe was apparently associated with a penetrating thorn the patient had incurred in his ankle while running barefoot 12 years before. The diseased area was found to contain hyphae-containing granules that, when cultured, led to the growth of the organism. Shear considered the fungus most closely related to Eurotiopsis gayoni (now called Allescheria gayoni). The specific epithet boydii refers to Dr. Mark F. Boyd, who sent Lott the specimen. David Malloch moved the species to the newly created genus Petriellidium in 1970. The genus name of Petriellidium was in honour of Lionello Petri (1875-1946), who was an Italian botanist (Mycology) and Phytopathologist from Florence.