unusual ophthalmic manifestation in chronic myeloid leukemia: a case report

Background: chronic myeloid leukemia (cml) is a myeloproliferative hematopoietic malignancy with a heterogeneous proliferation of hematopoietic cells in the bone marrow. the ocular manifestations are rare symptoms of cml. in this case report, a cml patient with retinal hemorrhage is reported as an uncommon symptom. case presentation: a 35-year-old man was referred due to decreased right eye vision. the reduction of the visual acuity of the right eye (2/10), rounded and diffuse intra-retinal hemorrhage with white-center roth’s spots, and macular edema were seen. no systemic diseases and other ophthalmic manifestations were seen in this case. the white blood cell (wbc) count was 135,000 cells/ μl, the platelets were 430,000 cells/μl, and hemoglobin was 12.5 gr/dl. the myeloid progenitor and precursor were present in peripheral blood smear and bone marrow. also, the quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction indicated that the bcr-abl1-to-abl1 ratio was 0.795. a daily administration of 400 mg of imatinib was prescribed. two months later, wbc count reached 6,500 cells/μl, hb was 11.6 gr/dl, and platelets were 306,000 cells/μl. conclusion: the ophthalmic manifestations may be a symptom of cml. we found the rounded and diffuse intra-retinal hemorrhage, roth’s spots, and macular edema as the ocular manifestation of a cml case.