Osseous metaplasia with formation of hematopoietic bone marrow in a blind, painful eye.

A 31-year-old woman underwent an evisceration of her blind, painful right eye with placement of an aluminum oxide orbital implant. Histopathologic assessment revealed functional hematopoietic bone marrow, confirmed by immunohistochemistry, within osseous metaplasia of the retinal pigment epithelium. This finding is exceedingly rare, with few cases reported in the English literature. This report raises numerous questions, including the association between pain and hematopoietic bone marrow formation, the potential benefits of hematopoietic bone marrow in the eye, and the molecular biologic basis for this rare phenomenon.