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 (SO). Methods: Query of our institutional electronic medical record system for patients who underwent SO removal. Results: Twenty-eight cases of severe intraretinal SO migration were identified. All patients had characteristic round hyporeflective spaces favoring the inner retinal layers on optical coherence tomography (OCT) with increased hyperreflectivity in the deeper retinal layers, and corresponding hyperreflective spherules on near-infrared enface imaging. All patients received 5000-centistoke SO and their macular internal limiting membrane had been removed by the time of final SO instillation. Oil was in situ for an average of 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 SO migration which presents with a constellation of OCT findings distinct from other consequences of SO use.