DETACHMENT OF THE RETINA IN EARLY SARCOMA (MALIGNANT MELANOMA) OF THE CHOROID

Abstract

IN THE beginning of its growth sarcoma of the choroid does not cause detachment of the retina. It is after the tumor becomes larger that it causes the retina to separate from the choroid, and into the space thus formed an albuminous fluid is extravasated (serous detachment). Not infrequently the retina remains adherent to the head of the sarcoma—solid detachment—while along its sides the fluid presses the retina away from both the tumor and the choroid. The present paper is concerned only with the early stage of the detachment, before it has become total and before glaucoma has set in. At a meeting of the Ophthalmological Society of Vienna in 1935, Salzmann¹ showed microscopic preparations of early sarcoma of the choroid in which, in addition to the ophthalmoscopically visible detachment of the retina confined to the neighborhood of the tumor, there existed on the opposite side of