A Case Report of Vitreopapillary Traction Mistaken for Optic Disc Edema

Background: Traction of the optic disc occurs during incomplete detachment of the posterior vitreous from the peripapillary glial tissue. It can sometimes cause the appearance of disc edema and bilateral cases can be confused with papilledema or cause patients to be worked up for pseudotumor cerebri. Case Report: A patient presented with an outside diagnosis of unilateral optic disc edema and was found in fact to have vitreopapillary traction. Conclusion: Costly, ultimately unnecessary testing such as magnetic resonance imaging can be sometimes avoided if vitreopapillary traction is considered as a differential for disc edema. It can be easily identified with transverse spectral domain optical coherence tomography scans.