[1585 cases of retinal detachment surgery with homologous skin as buckling material]

From January 1963 to December 1989, 1585 consecutive cases of retinal detachment were operated with homologous skin as buckling material, the rate of operative success being 91.6%. Human skin is easy to obtain, sterilize and preserve; because of its appropriate thickness and firm but elastic consistency it satisfactorily meets the need to produce sufficient height and to maintain necessary duration of the scleral buckling; in addition to a high rate of reattachment, homologous skin implantation was well tolerated, very rarely rejected (0.06%) and infected (0.25%), and no late complications occurred. Therefore, the authors prefer using human skin as buckling agent rather than conventional synthetic material, e.g., silicon sponge etc.