Authors: Carolina Francisconi, Koby Brosh, Verena Juncal, Alan R. Berger, Filiberto Altomare, David R. Chow, David T. Wong, Louis R. Giavedoni, Rajeev H. Muni

Author Disclosure Block: C. Francisconi: None. K. Brosh: None. V. Juncal: None. A.R. Berger: None. F. Altomare: None. D.R. Chow: None. D.T. Wong: None. L.R. Giavedoni: None. R.H. Muni: None.

Abstract Body:

Purpose: Previous studies have demonstrated that approximately 30 to 40% of patients that undergo pars plana vitrectomy (PPV) for rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD) repair have post-operative retinal displacement on Fundus Autofluorescence (FAF) imaging. Recently, the PIVOT trial showed that Pneumatic Retinopexy (PnR) may offer advantages over PPV in terms of visual acuity and vertical distortion. However, the rates of retinal displacement following pneumatic retinopexy have never been reported. In the present study, we aim to report the rates of retinal displacement following PnR.
Study Design: Prospective cohort study.
Methods: The study in­cluded patients presenting with primary macula-off RRD where PnR was the treatment of choice. Patients with previous retinal surgery or severe media opacity were excluded. The inci­dence of retinal displacement was assessed by FAF imaging between 2 and 4 months post RRD repair. The images were evaluated by 2 independent masked graders for the presence of retinal vessel printing (RVP).
Results: We evaluated 20 eyes of 20 patients. Fifteen patients were male, the median age was 59 (range 24-79) and 12 patients were phakic. All patients had injection of SF6 gas and had steam-roller maneuver. Four patients required additional gas injection and 5 patients failed PnR treatment and underwent subsequent PPV. The median follow-up period was 77 days (range 46-133). Three patients were excluded from analysis as the FAF images could not be assessed for RVP due to development of media opacity following PPV. Of the remaining 17 patients, 2 patients (11.8%) had retinal displacement following pneumatic retinopexy.
Conclusions: In this prospective cohort study 11.8% of patients who underwent primary pneumatic retinopexy developed subsequent retinal displacement on FAF imaging. These results suggest that PnR for RRD repair is associated with far less retinal displacement than that described with PPV based on the published literature.