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Sutureless vitrectomy patients safe from contamination at 15 days postop
Patients who undergo 23-gauge sutureless vitrectomy should be safe from intraocular contamination at 15 days after surgery, according to a study.
The prospective, observational case series included 34 eyes of 34 patients; the eyes had 102 sclerotomy-related conjunctival wounds. The wounds were examined with a slit lamp using cobalt blue light with fluorescein dye staining at days 1, 4, 8 and 15 postoperatively. Patients were observed for evidence of wound leakage, hemorrhage, endophthalmitis and other factors.
Seventy-five wounds (73.5%) had not healed 4 days after surgery; 13.7% of eyes had a gaping conjunctival epithelium at day 8, and no wounds had gaping at day 15.
Eleven eyes underwent combined vitrectomy and cataract extraction, which significantly delayed the healing of conjunctival wounds (P = .036).