| Macular edema | |
|---|---|
| Other names | Macular oedema,[1] familial macular edema |
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| A 61-year-old man with medical history of type 2 diabetes that presents a macular edema, evidenced by an OCT (the edema marked with arrows). The central image is a 3D reconstruction of the retinal thickness (the edema is coloured in red). | |
| Specialty | Ophthalmology  |
Macular edema occurs when fluid and protein deposits collect on or under the macula of the eye (a yellow central area of the retina) and causes it to thicken and swell (edema). The swelling may distort a person's central vision, because the macula holds tightly packed cones that provide sharp, clear, central vision to enable a person to see detail, form, and color that is directly in the centre of the field of view.
- ^ 'Oedema' is the standard form defined in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary (2011), with the precision that the spelling in the United States is 'edema'.