Acute retinal necrosis complicating chickenpox in a healthy adult--a case report and review of literature

Acute retinal necrosis (ARN) is known to occur in conjunction with primary varicella or chickenpox infection. The majority of ARN cases reported in the literature were of milder form with mild to moderate vitritis, limited retinitis, and rare occurrence of retinal breaks or detachment that responded well to intravenous acyclovir, with or without oral prednisolone. We report a case of unilateral ARN with marked vitritis and retinal necrosis leading to retinal breaks following chickenpox in a 32-year-old healthy lady. This patient was successfully treated with intravenous acyclovir followed by oral acyclovir and orbital floor triamcinolone injections to contain the inflammation with barrier laser therapy to secure the retinal breaks with good visual outcome. This case is unusual in its severity, and to our knowledge, orbital floor triamcinolone therapy was not used earlier to contain ARN inflammation.