Abstract
Purpose: :
To determine the prevalence of posterior vitreous detachment (PVD) in healthy eyes and its relation to patient age, refractive error and to the incidence of vitreosquisis.
Methods: :
The vitreous conditions of 400 eyes of 200 consecutive healthy patients were divided into 3 groups according to age and into 6 groups according to the refractive error. The eyes were examined with binocular indirect ophthalmoscopy, biomicroscopy and B–scan ultrasound.
Results: :
The prevalence of PVD in patients with high myopia increased with age. Its overall frequency was significantly higher than that in the hyperopic eyes (25% and 17%, respectively, p<0.001). In addition, the onset of PVD in patients with high myopia occurred much earlier. In older aged–groups, the frequency of PVD was higher than in younger groups. No vitreosquisis case was found in this series of patients.
Conclusions: :
Our results suggest that the prevalence of PVD increases with age and with de degree of myopia. Vitreosquisis do not occur in healthy eyes.
Keywords: vitreous • clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: natural history • clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: prevalence/incidence