Walsh & Hoyt: Optic Disc Coloboma

The term coloboma, of Greek derivation, means curtailed or mutilated. It is used only with reference to the eye. According to Mann, colobomas of the optic disc result from incomplete or abnormal coaptation of the proximal end of the embryonic fissure. Liebrich is credited with the first ophthalmoscopic description of an isolated optic disc coloboma, and Coats discussed the subject in detail in 1908, adding clinical and pathologic data on cases from his own experience to the three cases already in the literature at that time. Subsequent reports presented similar examples of isolated optic disc coloboma.