The Retina Reference

Retinal Detachment - OCT

This pair of images shows the macula of a 46 year old man with diabetes before and after developing a retinal detachment. The top image shows the appearance before the retinal detachment. The retina has an epiretinal membrane (yellow arrow) which worsened over time and was eventually surgically peeled. After surgery, he developed a rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (bottom OCT). Subretinal fluid (partly circled) separates the retina from the retinal pigment epithelium. Note that the retina has become more hyperreflective in its detached state (compare the reflectivity of the retina at the orange arrow above and the light green arrow below). Compare the location of the fluid in this condition to that in retinoschisis, in which the fluid is located within the retina (look at the image "Bullous retinoschisis - OCT" under the Disease "Degenerative Retinoschisis".