| Title | Retinal detachment following 23-gauge vitrectomy: incidence, characteristics, and prognosis. |
| Purpose | to evaluate the incidence, characteristics and prognosis of retinal detachments (RD) following 23G vitrectomy for various indications and to compare these features with those of RD following 25G vitrectomy in a previous series operated on by the same surgeon. |
| Methods | in this retrospective study we reviewed the chart of all the patients who underwent 23G vitrectomy between 15/03/2008 and 15/08/2010 and developed RD postoperatively, provided no other intra-ocular surgery was performed in the mean time. The main parameters recorded were the delay between vitrectomy and RD, the indication for 23G vitrectomy, the peroperative complications, the preoperative risk factors, the characteristics of the RD, and the anatomical and functional success of RD surgery. |
| Results | 9 eyes out of 305 undergoing 23G vitrectomy in this consecutive series developed RD, that is an incidence of 2.9%. Two thirds occured less than one month after vitrectomy. Indication for 23G vitrectomy was an epimacular membrane in 5 cases, a vitreo-macular traction syndrome in 2 cases, synchisis scintillans and chronic vitreous hemorrhage in 1 case each. Even if 5/9 eyes had a macula-on RD, 2/9 eyes were finally functionally lost. No eye underwent more than one RD surgery. These results compared favorably with our previous 25G vitrectomy series and with other similar series published in the pertinent litterature. |
| Conclusion | the incidence and prognosis of RD in our series compare favorably with the data found in other series dealing with 23G as well as 25G vitrectomies. Most of those RDs may be unrelated to the vitrectomy technique, 20, 23 or 25-gauge, but related to preoperative risk factors, and peroperative complications. |
| Last name | BARBRY |
| Initials | J |
| Department | Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc, UCL |
| City | Brussels |
| Last name | Gribomont |
| Initials | AC |
| Department | Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc, UCL |
| City | Brussels |