Macular hole surgery using silicone oil tamponade

Most surgeons performing macular hole surgery using long acting gas recommend strict postoperative face down posturing for 10-15 days. Patients with chronic systemic illness such as arthritis may be unable to carry out this postoperative regime. Thus there is a need for alternative techniques that would eliminate such a regime. The authors review a series of patients who underwent macular hole surgery using silicone oil without any postoperative posturing.

A retrospective case note review was performed of patients who had undergone macular hole surgery with silicone oil tamponade. The patients were unable to posture due to chronic illness and had stage 2, 3, or 4 full thickness macular holes. Removal of silicone oil performed with or without cataract surgery was arranged 3 months or more after surgery.

10 eyes of 10 patients underwent surgery. Duration of oil tamponade ranged from 3-9 months. Following oil removal the hole was closed in eight eyes (80%), of which only three showed any improvement in visual acuity (38%) even after cataract extraction. All eyes developed cataract to varying degrees and one eye developed raised intraocular pressure which settled after oil removal. A serious complication, endophthalmitis, occurred in one eye following removal of sutures after cataract extraction.

The anatomical results (80%) in this series are in keeping with those reported in other studies using gas tamponade. The visual results are disappointing and less rewarding than those obtained after successful surgery using gas tamponade.