Subretinal Hemorrhages in High Myopia

ABSTRACT

Ocular changes such as crescents, posterior staphyloma, retinochoroidal degeneration, lacquer cracks and subretinal or choroidal hemorrhage are common In myopia. We examined 13 patients(13 eyes) who had refractive errors of -6.0 Diopter or more and subretinal hemorrhages at initial visit. According to fluorescein angiographic finding, subretinal hemorrhages in high myopia were divided into two groups 6 eyes without choroidal neovascularization(CNV) and 7 eyes with choroidal neovascularization. Subretinal hemorrhage without choroidal neovascularization was frequent in patients aged 15-32 years(mean, 23.7 years) and choroidal neovascularization was common in patients aged 34-60 years(mean 47.6 years). In the eyes without choroidal neovascularization, the subretinal hemorrhage disappeared spontaneously after a few months and the visual acuity of these patients was variable at the initial visit(range, 5/200-20/30), and was unchanged or improved during the follow-up period. In the eyes with choroidal neovascularization, the visual acuity was less than 0.1 at the initial visit, except 2 cases, and was unchanged or worsened during the follow-up peroid. It will be helpful to divide the high myopia with subretinal hemorrhage into with or without choroidal neovasculrization according to the flourescein angiography to assess the prognosis.