Purpose: To report a case of retinal cavernous hemangioma with intralesional phleboliths, simulating retinoblastoma.
Methods: A healthy 5-month-old girl developed left esotropia and was noted to have atraumatic vitreous hemorrhage with underlying partially calcified mass, suspicious for retinoblastoma.
Results: On examination, the visual acuity was fix and follow in the right eye and absent fixation in the left eye. Evaluation of the right eye revealed normal findings. The left eye demonstrated healthy anterior segment and dense vitreous hemorrhage with no view of the postequatorial structures, but with hazy view of the flat peripheral retina and a superonasal retinal mass, covered with fresh hemorrhage. Three white intralesional flecks, consistent with calcification, each measuring 300 μm, were visualized. B-scan ultrasonography confirmed the dense mass with several foci of calcification, suspicious for retinoblastoma, despite poor visualization on funduscopy. Prophylactic intravenous chemotherapy was delivered for globe salvage and systemic protection. At 12-month follow-up, the hemorrhage showed resolution, revealing a superonasal dark blue multilobulated mass with saccular aneurysms, measuring 16 mm in diameter, and with 3 phleboliths (intralesional calcification). Fluorescein angiography demonstrated early and midphase hypofluorescence with late-phase filling and with plasma-erythrocyte separation in some larger aneurysms, characteristic of retinal cavernous hemangioma.
Conclusion: Retinal cavernous hemangioma can be associated with intralesional calcification (phleboliths).