Vitrectomy with or without internal limiting membrane peeling for myopic foveoschisis

The aim of this study was to compare the anatomical and visual outcomes of vitrectomy with or without internal limiting membrane (ILM) peeling for symptomatic myopic foveoschisis (MF).

A retrospective cohort study of patients who had undergone vitrectomy for symptomatic MF at our specialist ophthalmology department in China. Cases were retrospectively categorized into one of two cohorts, depending on whether or not they had undergone ILM peeling (ILMP) during their surgery. Over a mean follow-up period of 18 months, all eyes underwent repeated examinations, including best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and optical coherence tomographic (OCT) recordings, particularly focusing on central foveal thickness (CFT), macular hole (MH) formation and/or foveal detachment (FD).

We included 32 eyes (32 patients) with mean age of 62.2 ± 7.4 years. 31 patients (96.8%) were female. There were 21 eyes in the ILMP cohort and 11 eyes in the non-ILMP cohort. There were no significant preoperative differences in age, axial length, symptom duration or postoperative follow-up period between the two cohorts. MF was resolved completely in all of the eyes except one eye in the ILMP cohort. The postoperative CFT was significantly reduced compared to the preoperative baseline in both cohorts (469 ± 203 μm to 253 ± 56 μm; p = 0.003 in no-ILMP; 495 ± 178 μm to 244 ± 63 μm; p <  0.001 in ILMP, respectively). The final BCVA improved significantly in non-ILMP (1.27 ± 0.63 logMAR to 0.73 ± 0.55 logMAR; p = 0.021); but not significantly in ILMP cohort (1.25 ± 0.51 to 0.98 ± 0.57 logMAR; p = 0.143).

Vitrectomy, either with or without ILM peeling, results in a significant anatomical improvement in eyes with MF. Eyes treated by vitrectomy may have a better visual improvement when ILM was not peeled.