Tomographic image and visual recovery of acute macula-off rhegmatogenous retinal detachment.

PURPOSE

To observe the macula of acute rhegmatogenous retinal detachment involving the macula with optical coherence tomography (OCT) after scleral buckling and to study the relation between pre- and postoperative visual acuity and the OCT image.

METHODS

Prospective study of 15 eyes of 15 patients with macula-off rhegmatogenous retinal detachment. We selected cases with preoperative visual acuity worse than 0.5 to analyze the improvement in postoperative visual acuity. The time period between macula-off retinal detachment and surgery was less than 1 week.

RESULTS

Indirect ophthalmoscopy indicated that all retinal detachments were reattached at 2 weeks postoperatively. Accumulation of subretinal fluid at the fovea was observed in nine (60%) cases with OCT. In four of these nine eyes, the accumulation of subretinal fluid persisted up to 6 months after the operation. The presence of residual subretinal fluid did not influence visual recovery during the 6 months' postsurgical follow-up.

CONCLUSIONS

OCT revealed postoperative residual subretinal fluid at the macula in some acute macula-off retinal detachment cases. Residual subretinal fluid did not influence the recovery of visual acuity for at least 6 months after surgery.