Postoperative refractive error after phacovitrectomy for epiretinal membrane with and without macular oedema

This study was initiated to investigate whether the presence of macular oedema influenced intraocular lens (IOL) power calculation in eyes with epiretinal membrane.

The files of patients undergoing combined phacoemulsification were retrospectively reviewed. Two groups were defined according to presence of macular oedema. The main outcome measure was the IOL power prediction error (PE). Secondary outcome measures were the correlation between preoperative macular thickness, absolute change of macular thickness and dioptric shift. The mean postoperative PE achieved with the Haigis formula was compared with the PE that would have been obtained had the SRKII and HofferQ formulas been used.

We investigated 47 eyes of 47 consecutive patients. Regardless of the IOL formula used, the PE was on average higher in eyes without macula oedema (group 1). The myopic dioptric shift was dependent on preoperative macular thickness and absolute change of macular thickness. This association was more markedly pronounced in group 1.

Increased retinal thickness is the main cause for underestimation of the cornea-photoreceptor layer distance, and therefore could contribute to inaccuracy in IOL power calculations. The current results show that a myopic shift tends to be less pronounced in cases where a macula oedema is present. Eyes with pure traction have less predictable refractive results in terms of higher PE and dioptric shift.