Macular circulation and the flying corpuscles phenomenon.

The entoptic phenomenon of the flying corpuscles (FLC) consists of the perception of one's own leukocytes flowing in the perifoveal capillaries. A method has been developed to investigate the type of motion of the FLC, their relative number and speed, and their distribution over the central visual field. The results in 38 patients with disease affecting the macula correlated well with the clinical findings obtained by ophthalmoscopy, visual field tests, and fluorescein angiography. The test is noninvasive, inexpensive, easy to perform, and provides information on the perifoveal retinal circulation and on macular function.