Pars plana vitrectomy plus scleral buckle versus pars plana vitrec-tomy in pseudophakic retinal detachment

Cataract surgery increases the risk for rhegmatogenous retinal detachment. Pars plana vitrectomy and scleral buckling are two surgical procedures used for its repair. The combination of both techniques had been proposed for rhegmatogenous retinal detachment in patients with previous cataract surgery (pseudophakic or aphakic), but its effectiveness remains unclear.

We searched in Epistemonikos, the largest database of systematic reviews in health, which is maintained by screening multiple information sources, including MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane, among others. We extracted data from the systematic reviews, reanalyzed data of primary studies, conducted a meta-analysis and generated a summary of findings table using the GRADE approach.

We identified four systematic reviews with eight studies overall, one of them was a randomized trial. With this data, we conclud-ed that pars plana vitrectomy plus scleral buckle may make little or no difference in primary or final retinal reattachment rate nor in final visual acuity, but the certainty of the evidence is low. In terms of surgery complications, we are uncertain if vitrecto-my plus scleral buckle increases the risk of proliferative vitreoretinopathy or reduces the risk of glaucoma because the certainty of the evidence is very low.