A rare patient case of staphyloma
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By Maria Sampalis, OD
This is a 50-year-old patient with no other health complications.
The right eye has nothing in it, it’s clear and fine; the right eye is 20/20. The right eye has a little freckle, but we’re not worried about that.
The left eye has an elevation centrally in the image, and that’s what we’re concerned about. Originally, we thought that it might have been an eye tumor. But after getting to know the patient, we learned that she has amblyopia in that eye. She’s about finger counting at five feet, and then she also has degenerative myopia. She was kind of born with it, so she’s got a high prescription, and that’s what caused that. That’s what also caused the intraretinal hemorrhage.
Figure 1. Left eye with staphyloma.
Courtesy of Dr. Maria Sampalis
Figure 2. Right eye within normal limits.
Courtesy of Dr. Maria Sampalis
She has a staphyloma. She has loss of foveal reflex, and then, obviously, it’s very characteristic of the disc. It’s a temporal tilted disc with peripapillary atrophy, so it’s just a nice case with high myopia.
We did imaging and then a case history to get to the diagnosis. There’s nothing we can do for treatment. We just watch it. But I just thought it was an interesting case to present to readers because it’s rare.
We’ve just been watching her, talk about flashes, floaters in the other eye, and the importance of yearly eye exams. But this is just something she was born with, and she does have vision in it.
I thought Optometry 360 readers would appreciate the images and the fact that, because of the high myopia, she was born with that issue.
Maria Sampalis, OD, is an optometrist at Sampalis Eye Care in Rhode Island. Disclosures: Corporate Optometry on Facebook.
