Prophylactic scleral buckle for prevention of retinal detachment following vitrectomy for macular hole

To review the rate of retinal detachment after macular hole surgery in patients who received vitrectomy and scleral buckle versus those who had vitrectomy alone.

All patient charts and hospital records were examined for patients who underwent vitrectomy surgery for macular hole between September 1993 and June 1997. A total of 326 patients were identified and all were followed for a minimum of 6 months. Clinical records were examined for details of the surgical procedure, visual acuity, hole closure status, adjuvant therapies used, and postoperative retinal attachment status. Relative risks (the ratio of the incidence rate in the exposed to that in the unexposed) with 95% confidence intervals and chi(2) tests were calculated to determine which variables were associated with retinal detachment. The primary outcome measure in this review was retinal attachment status.

Of 326 eyes which underwent surgery for macular hole during the study period, scleral buckles were utilised in 152 (46.6%) patients. Analysis revealed a detachment rate of 13.2% in patients who did not receive a scleral buckle compared with 5.9% detachment rate in those who did. Analysis of these results indicated a 2.42 times greater risk of developing a retinal detachment in patients without a scleral buckle. Complications related to the use of scleral buckles occurred in two of 152 cases (1.3%)

A reduction in the rate of retinal detachment was noted in patients receiving prophylactic scleral buckles. Those finding suggest a possible beneficial effect of this adjunctive procedure in preventing postoperative retinal detachments. The authors are currently preparing a multicentred, prospective, clinical trial to further study this hypothesis