Combined central retinal artery and central retinal vein obstruction after retrobulbar anesthesia

ABSTRACT

Retrobulbar anesthesia is the most common anesthetic procedure in ophthalmology. Although it is rarely associated with serious problems, a considerable number of complications have been reported. One of these is retinal vascular occlusion, which can have devastating visual sequelae. To our knowledge, only 11 cases of combined obstruction of the central retinal artery and central retinal vein, secondary to retrobulbar anesthesia, have been reported previously. We present an additional such case which resulted in permanent blindness. Possible mechanisms are discussed, as well as alternative techniques of local anesthesia that might decrease the incidence of complications associated with retrobulbar injections