A boat shaped hemorrhage is descriptive term due to the shape of the pooling of blood in cases of proliferative retinopathies.
This patient presented with PDR confirmed by fluorescein angiography (not shown here). There is a clinical appearance of a boat-shaped hemorrhage (arrow). This is a descriptive term used to note the concave appearance of blood inferiorly with a flattened top portion. Its characteristic shape is due to the presence of blood between the retina and the hyaloid. If the hyaloid was degenerated (as occurs with natural aging) then this same blood would now be in the vitreous and termed a vitreous hemorrhage. Thus a pre-hyaloidal hemmorhage (in the shape of a boat-shaped hemorrhage) and a vitreous hemorrhage, carry the same prognostic weight.
