Congenital bilateral arterial anastomosis between the choroid and peripheral retina

A healthy 26-year-old woman, had a decrease of vision in her left eye caused by a macular pucker, showed deformed retinal vessels, small exudative detachments of the neuroretina, and retinal exudates and hemorrhages in both fundi peripheral to the equator at the 6-o'clock position. Fluorescein angiography and stereoscopic photographs clearly showed an anastomosis of a recurrent ciliary artery with periphral retinal vessels and localized absence of the choriocapillaris under the detached retina in both eyes. The anastomosis probably developed in the last month of fetal life as the result of a localized absence of Bruch's membrane caused by an incomplete coloboma of the choroid that originated during the second month of gestation.