Unilateral Purtscher’s retinopathy – A rare case report

Abstract

With retinal whitening (Purtscher’s flecken) and intraretinal hemorrhages, Purtscher’s retinopathy was initially reported as a symptom of sudden loss of vision following head trauma in 1910. A 28-year-old male patient presented with a history of sudden painless decrease of vision in his left eye (LE) for 1 week. He gave a history of head-and-neck injury following a road traffic accident. Unaided distance visual acuity was 20/20 in the right eye (RE) and 20/40 in the LE which improved up to 20/25 on pinhole at the time of presentation. On examination, the anterior segment was within normal limits. Fundus photo and ocular coherence tomography (OCT) showed normal in the RE; however, LE showed multiple white patches around the optic disc with flamed-shaped hemorrhages on the fundus photo and macular edema with discontinuity in the inner and outer retinal layer on OCT. The patient received oral steroids as treatment, and after 1 month of follow-up, had recovered to 20/20 visual acuity.