Clinical and Optical Coherence Tomography Analysis of Intraretinal Microcysts in Patients with Epiretinal Membrane

Purpose: To perform clinical and optical coherence tomography analysis of intraretinal microcysts (IRM) in patients undergoing pars plana vitrectomy (PPV) for primary epiretinal membrane (ERM) treatment.Materials and Methods: The files of 137 patients who were operated on by a single surgeon for primary epiretinal membrane treatment in our clinic between September 2017 and January 2020 were retrospectively reviewed. Patients with ERM due to secondary pathology were excluded from the study. Twenty patients with post-operative IRM (group 1) were determined and were included as the study group. To determine the effect of IRMs on visual acuity 20 patients who did not have IRM, had primary ERM and underwent PPV for treatment were included as the control group (group 2). The demographic, clinical, and operative data of the patients were obtained from the hospital database. Retinal analysis of the patients before the operation and at the earliest 6 months after the operation was performed using 6 × 6 mm images taken with the macular cube 512 × 128 protocol on the Cirrus HD-OCT (Carl Zeiss Meditec, Dublin, CA, USA) device in our clinic.Results: Intraretinal microcysts were present in 8 (5.8%) of preoperative 137 patients and 20 (14.6%) of 137 postoperative patients. All 8 patients with preoperative cysts in group 1 also had postoperative IRMs. Excluding patients with preoperative cysts, the postoperative IRM incidence was found to be 12/137 (8.75%). Preoperative (p = .392) and postoperative (p = .978) visions were similar in group 1 and group 2. Preoperative (p = .745) and postoperative retinal thicknesses were similar in both groups (p = .989). The incidence of postoperative (p = .642) IRM was similar in patients who underwent ERM and ERM + internal limiting membrane (ILM) peeling in group 1.Conclusions: Intraretinal microcysts may sometimes be seen before and after ERM surgery. The preoperative cyst presence in ERM patients is an important risk factor for postoperative cyst presence. The peeling of ILM with ERM does not increase the probability of IRM occurrence. The presence of these cysts before and/or after the operation does not affect the visual prognosis and macular thickness in ERM patients.