The front of a patient's eye can look striped like a candy cane: a pale, khaki-colored band of cells resting on a heavier layer of fresh red blood. A recent clinical image in JAMA Ophthalmology, titled "Candy-Stripe Sign in Ghost Cell Glaucoma," put that pattern on display.
The khaki layer is made of ghost cells, worn-out red blood cells that can jam the eye's drainage system and drive pressure dangerously high. Surgery and injury are the best-known ways they escape into the front of the eye. A less familiar trigger is an injection that many people with diabetic eye disease receive. In one study of eyes with severe diabetic eye disease and long-standing bleeding, about 1 in 9 developed ghost cell glaucoma within two days of such a shot.
