Surgical outcomes of the Baerveldt Glaucoma Implant: differences between surgical techniques in the Rotterdam Eye Hospital.

PURPOSE

During the last decades, the Baerveldt Glaucoma Implant (BGI) has proven effective in the surgical treatment of glaucoma. Various surgical procedures have been used for its implantation and these may yield different clinical outcomes and different intraoperative and postoperative complications. We evaluated the success rate of BGI and compared complications between 2 different surgical implantation techniques.

METHODS

Retrospective analyses of medical records of consecutive adult patients who underwent a BGI implantation at the Rotterdam Eye Hospital between September 2007 and August 2008. Patients were divided by the surgical implantation technique. Success was defined as an intraocular pressure ≥6 mm Hg and ≤21 mm Hg as well as a reduction of ≥20% from preoperative values. Other outcome measures were intraoperative and postoperative complications and surgical revisions of the BGI.

RESULTS

A total of 173 BGI procedures were performed during the study period. Only first-ever BGI implantations in adult patients were analyzed, yielding 141 implants for the analyses. The length of follow-up averaged 11.5 months (range, 0.3 to 24.7 mo) and the mean (SD) preoperative intraocular pressure was 25.6 (8.6). Overall success rates were 75% and 83%, respectively, for the 2 different groups (P=0.40 for differences between groups). Nine patients (6%) needed a reoperation, whereas complications were documented in another 9 patients without significant differences between groups.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall complication rates of the BGI were low and they combined with high success rates. Outcomes did not differ between the various surgical techniques. The choice of a certain technique might therefore be based on differences in costs and length of surgery between these techniques.