Family Medical History
When a person has a splinter hemorrhage in the eye, there is a high chance that it is caused by a family medical history of the same condition. There are several types of hemorrhage, like intraocular, subconjunctival, and episcleral. The most common type is intraocular hemorrhage, which accounts for over 80 percent of all cases.
The cause of this type of hemorrhage are broken blood vessels or capillaries behind the retina, which causes bleeding in the eye. In addition, a family history of bleeding disorders can cause the development of splinter hemorrhage. This is because those with a rare condition called Glanzmann thrombasthenia have a mutation in their plasminogen (the protein that makes up the clotting cascade) that causes their blood to thin out and have trouble clotting.
