SURGICAL-TREATMENT FAILURES OF RHEGMATOGENOUS RETINAL-DETACHMENT

The surgical treatment of rhegmatogenous retinal detachment, has consi derably improved. But there are still a lot of failures, at least afte r the first surgical procedure. Out of a group of 320 retinal detachme nts, a one stage surgical procedure allowed the retina to reattach in 84% of cases. Out of the 51 failures, we defined 2 subgroups : the ear ly recurrences were mainly caused by undiagnosed breaks or insufficien t scleral buckling, and the delayed recurrences by a vitreo-retinal pr oliferation or a new tear. Though a secund operation increased the suc cess rate to 97%, it is certainly desirable to lower the failure rate of the first surgical procedure.