Study: Lens status may not affect anatomic success of retinal detachment surgery

There appears to be no difference in anatomical success among phakic and pseudophakic eyes treated for primary rhegmatogenous retinal detachments by either pars plana vitrectomy or scleral buckling, according to a prospective, multicenter study.

However, "pars plana vitrectomy was most often performed in pseudophakic eyes and had a greater probability of a worse final visual acuity than scleral buckling," the study authors said.

J. Carlos Pastor, MD, and colleagues evaluated anatomical and functional outcomes for 546 phakic and pseudophakic primary rhegmatogenous retinal detachments treated with either pars plana vitrectomy or sclera buckling. They published their results in the March issue of British Journal of Ophthalmology.

Overall, surgery resulted in a 94.7% global anatomical success rate, according to the study.

Logistic regression analysis confirmed that poor anatomical outcomes were only associated with the development of proliferative vitreoretinopathy after surgery.

"The poorest functional results were associated with macular involvement, extension of [retinal detachment], previous [retinal detachment] surgery, time of evolution of [retinal detachment] and age of patient," the authors said.

"Hierarchical log-linear analysis showed no effect of the lens status (phakic versus pseudophakic) on the functional results. However, pars plana vitrectomy was most often performed in pseudophakic eyes and resulted in a worse final visual acuity (P < .001)," they noted.