[Spontaneous course of retinal detachment with macular hole in patients with severe myopia]

We followed-up without any treatment 17 eyes of 14 highly myopic patients affected by a retinal detachment confined to the posterior pole. The follow-up ranged from 3 to 92 months (mean follow-up: 4 years). The retinal detachment remained unchanged in 12 eyes (70.5%), spontaneously reattached in 3 eyes (17.6%), and progressed to the periphery in 2 eyes (11.7%). At the end of the follow-up period, 68.7% of eyes retained useful visual acuity. From these data we conclude that 1) immediate surgical management is probably unnecessary in a number of myopic eyes with retinal detachment confined to the posterior pole and 2) such detachments likely are traction retinal detachments rather than rhegmatogenous retinal detachments due to a macular hole.