Abstract
Purpose:
To describe the incidence and clinical characteristics of epiretinal membrane (ERM) developing after posterior vitreous detachment (PVD), in a patient population presenting to a tertiary eye care centre.
Methods:
We identified subjects that presented with acute symptoms of PVD to the ophthalmology clinics at Stanford university. Optical coherence tomography(OCT) was performed to confirm the presence of PVD. Subjects with pre-existing ERM and other ocular conditions which may cause secondary ERM (eg: retinal vein occlusion, uveitis, diabetic retinopathy, trauma) were excluded. Subjects were followed up for at least 2 years for the development of ERM on repeat OCT.
Results:
157 subjects were included over a 1 year period. The mean age of subjects presenting with PVD was 65.2 (+/-11.0) years. 7 eyes (4.5%) developed ERM within the followup period. Epiretinal membrane was diagnosed on OCT on average 289 days (+/-235) after PVD. The incidence of retinal tears after PVD was similar in the group that developed ERM (14%) and the group that did not develop ERM (12%) (p=0.856). All cases with tears had laser retinopexy performed. Mean visual acuity was worse in the ERM group (20/38) compared with the No ERM group (20/26) (p=0.01). 43% of ERM cases had visual acuity worse than 20/40.
Conclusions:
ERM is diagnosed an average of 9 months after PVD and results in worse VA than those without ERM. Retinal tears occurring after the PVD was not a risk factor for developing ERM.