Retinal lipemia as expression of hyperchylomicronemia syndrome.

Case description: Case of lipemia retinalis secondary to hyperchylomicronemia in a 40-year-old man with a history of total body irradiation and immunosuppressive treatment that was attended in this hospital due to decreased visual acuity and abdominal pain.

Clinical findings: Hyperchylomicronemia caused the development of acute pancreatitis and lipemia retinalis. The latter is an infrequent ocular manifestation that reflects excessive triglyceride blood levels in the organism (>2,000 mg/dL). Lipemia retinalis is characterized by the accumulation of chylomicrons in the retinal vessels, which gives them a white and creamy appearance in direct retinal ophthalmoscopy. The initial clinical suspicion of hyperchylomicronemia was based on the visualization of the supernatant in the analytical tube.

Treatment and result: In the absence of definitive biochemical results, and owing to the need for special processing of the sample, lipid-lowering treatment and serum therapy were established after ophthalmological confirmation of lipemia retinalis, with subsequent full recovery of visual acuity.

Clinical relevance: Given the initial difficulty to determine the accurate triglyceride levels in this kind of patient, early visualization of milky-colored retinal vessels on a salmon-colored eye fundus can help develop an early clinical suspicion of severe hyperchylomicronemia and contribute to limit the severity of complications.