Intraocular Triamcinolone Acetonide Injection Following Vitrectomy for Proliferative Diabetic Retinopathy: A...

To explore the efficacy of vitrectomy combined with intravitreal injection of Triamcinolone acetonide (TA) in the treatment of proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR).

This was a retrospective cohort study of patients who received intraocular surgery at Wuhan Tongji Hospital between January and December 2024. One hundred and thirty-three cases (138 eyes) with PDR were randomly divided into two groups: 72 cases (75 eyes) in the combined TA group and 61 cases (63 eyes) in the simple vitrectomy group (control group). Both groups underwent vitrectomy. Before closing the incision, the combination group was intravitreal injected with 4 mg TA. The patients were followed up for 3 months. The recovery of visual function and the control of PDR were analyzed.

The postoperative outcomes revealed that in the combined treatment group, 86.67% of patients experienced improved visual acuity, with 13.33% showing no change and no cases of decreased vision, leading to a significant improvement compared to the control group where visual acuity increased in 71.43% of patients, remained unchanged in 12.70%, and decreased in 15.87% (p < 0.05). Additionally, the combined group had a lower incidence of postoperative bleeding at 12.00 versus 23.81% in the control group (p < 0.05). Notably, the incidence of tractional retinal detachment was similar in both groups (p > 0.05), but macular epiretinal membrane was observed in 24.00% of the combined group's eyes compared to 41.27% in the control group, which was a significant difference (p < 0.05).

Vitrectomy combined with intravitreal injection of TA in the treatment of PDR can better improve the postoperative visual outcome and may help reduce the occurrence of postoperative proliferation, postoperative bleeding and other complications.