[Autologous blood injections for treating hypotonies after trabeculectomy]

The authors carried out a retrospective study in order to assess the efficacy of intrabled autologous blood injections after trabeculectomy. The indication for treatment was hypotony associated with overfiltration. Twelve eyes of 12 patients including seven men (58.3%) and five women (41.67 %) underwent from one to four (mean 1.7) subconjunctival injections. The age of the patients ranged from 31 to 66 years (mean 52.4 years). All the patients were diagnosed with open-angle glaucoma. Three eyes underwent trabeculectomy with mitomycine C, one with 5-fluorouracil and eight with no antimetabolite. The mean post-needling period was 12.3 months (ranging from 7 to 28 months). After intrabled blood injections, the average intraocular pressure increased from 2.7 1.2 mmHg (ranging from 0 to 6 mmHg) to 8.2 4.2 mmHg (ranging from 4 to 16 mmHg). The difference was statistically significant (P < 0.5). After treatment, the average visual acuity increased from 1.8/10 to 3.2/10. This difference was not statistically significant (P > 0.5). However, the procedure was ineffective in two patients (16.7%) as regards intraocular pressure and in seven patients (58.3%) as regards visual acuity. Hyphema, the most frequent complication (58.3% of our cases) is usually small, transient, and without sequelae. Although it may be delayed, it may be important and it induce intraocular hypertony (10% of our cases) or it may be associated with intravital blood.