“Glowing in the dark” and “cloud with a golden lining” – novel slit-lamp biomicroscopic findings in intracorneal epithelial cyst

Intrastromal corneal epithelial cysts are rare lesions. We report a case of intracorneal cyst in a 14-year-old female, where we demonstrated a unique finding on slit-lamp biomicroscopy. The lesion was seen to scatter light from the retroillumination beam to appear as “glowing” against the dark background. Another unique finding is the demonstration of “glittering” of the light beam at the edges of the intracorneal cyst by a slight change in the angle of retroillumination. We have coined these two unique slit-lamp retroillumination findings as “glowing in the dark” and “cloud with a golden lining”. These two novel findings may serve as valuable clinical diagnostic tools to identify intracorneal epithelial cysts on slit-lamp examination.