Clinical aspects, differential diagnosis and histopathology of spontaneous subretinal mass hemorrhage

This report describes the clinico-histopathologic correlation of three eyes (of three patients aged 80, 82 and 86 years) with massive subretinal hemorrhage. Two blind eyes were enucleated because of a painful therapy-resistant angle-closure glaucoma, one eye was suspected to have a melanoma of the choroid. Bleeding was predisposed by anticoagulant therapy for systemic problems in one patient and by thrombocytopenia in another patient. Histopathologically a disciform macular degeneration was found in all three eyes as the suspected source of bleeding. The differentiation of subretinal bleeding is from malignant melanoma of the choroid which is made possible by ultrasonic examination of the eye.