Abstract
Purpose: :
Retinal vein occlusions (RVO) are the second most common sight threatening vascular disorder and there is no effective sight restoring treatment for ischaemic central retinal vein occlusions (CRVO). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of radial optic neurotomy (RON) upon visual acuity following retinal vein occlusion.
Methods: :
We conducted a retrospective analysis of all consecutive cases of ischaemic RVO who underwent RON by a single surgeon between September 2004 and January 2007. Nine eyes of nine patients underwent RON for RVO. One patient had a hemiretinal vein occlusion and eight others had CRVO. Patient diagnosis, inclusion and exclusion criteria, visual acuity (VA) before and after treatment and complications of surgery were recorded. The range of follow-up was between six months to two years.
Results: :
One patient had a visual improvement from 1/60 to 6/9 after one year of follow-up. A further patient improved from 6/60 to 6/9 following RON. Three patients had visual improvements ranging from 1 line to 4 lines on Snellen’s chart. Three patients experienced no change in their vision and this included one patient who developed rubeosis iridis. Only one patient noticed deterioration in their vision secondary to two successive retinal detachments which were successfully repaired.
Conclusions: :
In our case series, RON resulted in visual improvement in fifty five percent of eyes with RVO. Our study suggests that in a carefully selected subgroup of patients with ischaemic RVO, RON may be worth considering despite the potential complications of surgery.
Keywords: vitreoretinal surgery • vascular occlusion/vascular occlusive disease • retina