[Macular function after successful surgery of retinal detachment (author's transl)]

Following successful surgery 20 cases of retinal detachment with previous separation of the macular area were submitted to examination of visual acuity, colour perception and metamorphopsia. Improvement of visual acuity usually developed during the 12-week-period of supervision; this improvement was related to the preoperative duration of the detachment. The disturbance of colour sense was confined to the perception of yellow and blue, beeing independent of the duration of the retinal detachment; as a rule a tendency to improvement was found during the time of observation. Labile postoperative metamorphopsias were more pronounced in the spoke-test than in the Amsler-test. No evident connexions between the duration of retinal detachment and the intensity of metamorpoptic distortions could be found. In cases with retinal tears in the posterior segment cured with a high plombade effect stable visual distortions occurred in the Amsler-test only. Such distortions seem to be due to mechanical factors and cannot be considered real metamorphopsias.