Abstract
Purpose: :
To investigate long term outcome after vitrectomi for epiretinal fibrosis and determine preoperative factors to estimate long term visual outcome. This study aims to answer if we should expect different results from surgery in eyes with better BCVA.
Methods: :
Long term follow-up examination to evaluate functional outcome and retinal morphology following vitrectomi for epiretinal fibrosis between June 1th 2006 and May 31th 2009
Results: :
Follow-up of 86 eyes in 86 patients. Mean age was 70. The follow-up was performed on average 28.8 months following vitrectomi. Following surgery average central foveal thickness was 380 micron. There was no correlation between central foveal thickness and neither gain of ETDRS letters following surgery nor BCVA at long term follow-up. Patients subjective assessment of visual distortion follow surgery showed that 16 patients (18.6%) did not have any remaining distortions following surgery. 50 patients (58.1%) described less metamorphopsia compared to before surgery. 16 patients (18.6%) described unchanged distortions following surgery. Mean preoperative BCVA was 55.9 ETDRS letters. Following surgery BCVA improved by an average of 14.4 ETDRS letters. Equivalent to a change from 20/76 snellen to 20/40 snellen or 0.26 decimal to 0.50 decimal. Among the patients who improved more than 2 lines of vision (64%) the average gain was 22.9 ETDRS letters. Final BCVA outcome was better than 70 EDTRS letters (0.5 decimal) in 60 patients (69.8%). 30 patients (34.9%) had a long term outcome of 80 EDTRS letters or higher (0.8 decimal). The only significant preoperative factor in reaching 0.5 or better long term outcome was preoperative BCVA with an Odds-ratio of 6.85 (CI95 2.44 - 19.27) p<0.001.
Conclusions: :
In this study we find that among the many variables that we suspected could positively influence the long term outcome of epiretinal fibrosis surgery only preoperative visual acuity showed a statistically significant correlation.
Keywords: macula/fovea • vitreoretinal surgery • visual acuity