Abstract
Purpose: :
To investigate whether there is a correlation between postoperative visual acuity and preoperative macular morphology in patients with idiopathic epiretinal membranes (ERM).
Methods: :
Twenty-three eyes of 22 patients underwent vitrectomy for the peeling of idiopathic ERM. Cases with secondary ERM and macular pseudohole were excluded from the study. All patients were followed up more than 6 months after surgery. Cataract surgery was combined for the phakic eyes. The visual acuity was measured before and 6 months after the surgery. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) was performed at the same time period to evaluate the foveal thickness and macular volume. Factors affecting on the postoperative visual acuity were analyzed.
Results: :
Postoperative visual acuity significantly correlated with the preoperative visual acuity (P=0.0007) and the age of the patients (P=0.0015). Although there was a tendency that the foveal thickness and macular volume before the surgery were correlated with the visual acuity 6 months after the surgery, these were not statistically significant (P=0.2135, 0.1742, respectively). Positive correlation was observed between the degree of visual improvement and the foveal thickness and macular volume measured by OCT (P=0.0103, 0.0003, respectively).
Conclusions: :
Preoperative evaluation of macular morphology by OCT might be useful to predict the visual function after surgery for the patients with idiopathic ERM.
Keywords: macula/fovea • retina • vitreoretinal surgery