RETINAL SURFACE WRINKLING AS AN INDICATOR FOR INTERNAL LIMITING MEMBRANE PEELING DURING VITRECTOMY FOR RETINAL DETACHMENT

PURPOSE: To assess the validity of retinal surface wrinkling (RSW) as an indicator to select patients relevant for internal limiting membrane peeling during vitrectomy for rhegmatogenous retinal detachment, to prevent postoperative visual decline due to epiretinal membrane growth. METHODS: This was a prospective, interventional case series of 78 consecutive eyes that underwent initial vitrectomy to repair rhegmatogenous retinal detachments and were followed for 6 months. The presence/absence of RSW was evaluated presurgically on en face optical coherence tomographic images. The internal limiting membrane was peeled if RSW was identified. The main outcome measure was the prevalence of postsurgical epiretinal membrane growth that caused a visual decline of 0.2 or more in logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution unit. RESULTS: The internal limiting membrane was peeled for RSW appearance in 22 eyes (28.2%). Mild epiretinal membranes developed in 8 of the 56 internal limiting membrane–unpeeled eyes (10.3% of total, 6 eyes at stage 1 in the classification of Govetto); however, visual decline occurred in none of them with the mean visual acuity of these 8 eyes maintained at −0.08 ± 0.11 in logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution (≈20/16). CONCLUSION: Visual decline due to epiretinal membrane growth after rhegmatogenous retinal detachment repair was entirely prevented by peeling the internal limiting membrane in about 30% of cases selected for the presence of RSW.