Clinical and Optical Coherence Tomography Characteristics of Severe Intraretinal Silicone Oil Migration

Purpose: To characterize the clinical and imaging features of patients presenting with a constellation of findings believed to represent severe intraretinal migration of silicone oil. Methods: Query of our institutional electronic medical record system for patients who underwent silicone oil removal. Results: Twenty-eight cases of severe IRSO were identified. All patients had characteristic round hypo-reflective spaces favoring the inner retinal layers on OCT with increased hyperreflectivity in the deeper retinal layers, and corresponding hyperreflective spherules on near-infrared enface imaging. All patients received 5000 centistoke silicone oil and had had their macular internal limiting membrane removed by the time of final silicone oil instillation. Oil was in situ for an average 220 ± 198 days before removal. Average follow up from time of oil out was 353 ± 529 days. Conclusions: We characterize an underrecognized phenotype of intraretinal silicone oil which presents with a constellation of OCT findings distinct from other consequences of silicone oil use.