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Updated: May 13, 2026
Ex Vivo OCT-Based Multimodal Imaging of Human Donor Eyes for Research into Age-Related Macular Degeneration
Published on: May 26, 2023
Tomographic features of macula after successful macular hole surgery
Kazuyuki Nukada1, Masanori Hangai, Sotaro Ooto
1Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan.
Purpose:
We determined the retinal features associated with a dissociated optic nerve fiber layer (DONFL) appearance after successful macular hole surgery with internal limiting membrane (ILM) peeling.
Methods:
A tota of 47 eyes of 47 patients who underwent pars plana vitrectomy with ILM peeling was examined by spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT).
Results:
A DONFL appearance was found in 31 (66.0%) eyes on color fundus photography. The postoperative best-corrected visual acuity and its improvements were not significantly different between eyes with and without this appearance. The SD-OCT images showed small inner retinal defects corresponding to each arcuate stria in all eyes with the DONFL appearance. Of these eyes, 25 (80.6%) included inner retinal defects extending beyond the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) into the ganglion cell layer and inner plexiform layer. Similar inner retinal defects were seen in 14 (87.5%) of the 16 eyes without a DONFL appearance; 10 eyes (62.5%) included the defects that extended deeper than the RNFL. Such deep defects were found more frequently in the temporal than in the other quadrants (P < 0.0001). In 10 eyes that underwent Micro Perimeter-1, a reduction in retinal sensitivity (<10 dB) was found in 20 (10.4%) of the 192 points on arcuate striae, but only in 7 (3.4%) of 208 points away from the striae (P = 0.005).
Conclusions:
Macular hole surgery with ILM peeling may lead to deep inner retinal damage regardless of the development of the DONFL appearance detected on color fundus photography.
