Endoscopic vitreoretinal surgery: Review of current applications and future trends

Endoscopy provides unique optical properties to circumvent anterior segment opacities and visualize difficult-to-access anatomical regions, including retroirideal, retrolental, ciliary body, and anterior retinal structures. We summarize the basic principles and utilization of endoscopic vitreoretinal surgery, along with recent technological advances in the field base on a structured literature search in Pubmed, Embase, and Google Scholar database up to February, 2020. Endoscopy has been used in the management of retinal detachment, ischemic retinopathies with neovascular glaucoma, severe ocular trauma, endophthalmitis, lens-related disorders in the posterior segment, pediatric vitreoretinal diseases, and implantation of retinal prostheses. Ongoing development of endoscopic technology aims to provide higher resolution images with endoscopes of smaller diameter. New surgical techniques supported by the adoption of endoscopy are available to manage challenging surgical scenarios. Endoscopy can be a useful adjunct to microscope wide-angle viewing systems in the management of complex vitreoretinal diseases.